


o come, let us adore him

by tin_girl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Epistolary, Fluff, M/M, Not Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Oblivious boys being oblivious, Pining, Ravenclaw Albus Severus Potter, SUCH idiots, Slytherin Scorpius Malfoy, a christmas fic, albus as the negative chaotic mess, also i made hermione and ron have marital problems because im an asshole and couldnt resist, also idiots, angst too after all because im incorrigible, buckle up this is going to be CUTE, but i still maintain its a mostly happy story, i gave an 11-year-old an existential crisis, now with divorce, scorpius as the positive chaotic mess, spans several years, which is rare for me ha, why am i like this, yes a Christmas fic in April
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 42,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23479378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tin_girl/pseuds/tin_girl
Summary: Draco is feeling benevolent, Scorpius sends Albus a letter because he hates him, and there are turnips. Hallelujah.
Relationships: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter
Comments: 97
Kudos: 98





	1. Hokey Cokey, December 2016

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title is from O Come, All Ye Faithful. I don't know how it works with wizards and Christmas but it seems like they celebrate it, so here they're going to celebrate the shit out of it. (Wow, my mom would have a stroke if she knew English and read this, oops). 
> 
> Why am I writing a Christmas fanfic in April? Quarantine, of course. 
> 
> (My self-isolation preparations required undressing a Christmas tree (yes, in spring, shut up) and now I miss it. Also, I wanted to write something happy for once). 
> 
> This is strictly epistolary (at least for now) even though the characters will meet in real life (Hogwarts, and all that). I'll skip over those parts and focus on their Christmas correspondance over the years. The first chapter has a lot of spelling mistakes, and hopefully, they're all on purpose! Some of them are ridiculous for a 10-year-old but I imagine Scorpius as the kind of kid who's had to listen to pretentious people using fancy words all his life, but hasn't ever read a book. Al, on the other hand, has probably read Anna Karenina back to back three times at least, and I imagine him as this funny mix of serious and wordy and still-childish. 
> 
> Oh, and this has nothing to do with Cursed Child. As far as I'm concerned, Cursed Child doesn't exist. This story is simply my take on the new generation, no Voldemort babies, no timeturners, no asshole Harry, thank you for coming to my ted talk. 
> 
> Also, I should be able to update this fairly often, since I'm, you know, stuck at home in ugly clothes doing nothing but drinking tea and contemplating my miserable existence. And then it's letter-format, which is always fun and fast to write.

Dear Albus Severus Potter,

We don’t know each other, but we know OF each other.

Let me explain.

As you know, Christmas is coming up, and the other day father said to me, see, here, Scor, it’s all good and well to be kind to those you love at this time of the year, but oh, to be kind to those you hate! He sucked on his finger for a while, which is something he does when he’s deep in thought, and also when he’s asleep, and also when he’s trying to pick letucce from between his teeth. He has a gap between his second and third molar and food always gets stuck there. I thought I myself would grow up to have normal teeth, but alas! Jenetics. Anyway, he sucked on his finger, and then told me to send someone I hate a hartfelt gift, ‘to save poor souls from Satan's power which long time had gone astray’, and all that.

(He likes all those Christmas-ey songs for some reason, although he wouldn’t admit it under torture. Or maybe he would? Apparently, he’s not good at wifstanding torture. Something about alternative lifestyle and rooming with Dark Lords in his youth).

Look, I’m not saying you’re all Satan-infested, but I couldn’t think of anyone else I hate. And it’s not like I hate you A LOT or something, but I had to pick SOMEONE. I don’t have any enemies as of yet but you’re the next best thing.

You’re probably dying to know why I hate you, but I’m not telling you yet, because SUSPENCE. And you can’t skip to the end of the letter because that would be unrespectful, and one can’t go around unsrespecting people on Christmas.

Anyway, it snowed yesterday, and I caught it on my tongue, and thought of you. Then I thought of all the dogs pissing outside each day and how the steam goes up up UP into the atmosfere and how it rains down later, only actually it snows down because it’s too cold for rain, so it’s really dog-pee snow and not SNOW snow. I kept eating it, anyway, because I’ve heard somewhere that that’s how you build up your toleranse to things. You may think it strange that I’d need to build up my toleranse to dog-pee jerms of all things, but I expect to be severelly bullied once we start school, and you never know what bullies will think of. There’s no escaping the urine, so I’d rather down it on my own terms, thank you very much.

Have you seen the snow and if you have, did you run out of your house which is probably nice and lovely and with three chimneys and red roof tiles and did you spin around and did you laugh and did you think that wite was a colour after all?

I hope you didn’t. It would make this hatred bussines much easier if you were some sort of a hermit who hates snow.

Allright, FINE, I hate you because father told me to. He said, Scorpius, his father probably allready told HIM to hate YOU so you have to hurry up and catch up on all the hate, here’s the begginer’s guide. He said that when I go to Hogwarts, you’ll call me a Death Eater and curse me until I’m a rabbit or an opossum or a racoon and push my head down the toilet (which, if you do do that, it won’t do much, since I’m allready imune, as long as dog urine and human urine are more or less the same thing). He also said that I can only hate you secretely because no one else will. He said I’ll be an out-sider, and he gave me The Catcher in the Rye to read, which has a lot of almost-swear-words and a lot of actual swear words and no frogs in it.

(I don’t read books without frogs in them on prinsiple, but I decided to indulge father just the once).

Anyway, I was going to send you chocolate, but that could rot your teeth (for all I know, you have gaps between your molars like me and father, everything you’ve ever eaten disintergating there slowly and patientlly like a corpse, biding its time) (ZOMBIE APOCALIPSE!!!) and so I’m attaching something a little bit healfier! Mary Christmas, Captivum solve Israel!

With hate,

Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy

*

Dear Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy,

I can’t believe you sent me a turnip. Who does that.

Yours Sincerely,

Albus Severus Potter

*

Dear Albus,

You’re a talkative one, huh?

Best,

Scorpius

*

Dear Malfoy,

Sweet Merlin, what is wrong with you WHO TALKS ABOUT DOG PEE TO A STRANGER. What, you think I have nothing better to do than reading about urine? Also, you can tell your father that he’s wrong! I’ll have you know that calling anyone a Death Eater is not allowed in our house (which DOES have three chimneys, and so what?) unless it’s an actual, dead/imprisoned/on-the-run Death Eater. Or your grandfather. He’s an exception.

And Merlin’s beard, “Satan-infested”? Really?

Grow up.

With respect,

Albus Severus Potter.

*

Dear Al,

I’m not going to grow up, I’m TEN. I still have a few years of misrable childhood left ahead of me at least. And I wasn’t talking about dog pee to A STRANGER. I do know your name, don’t I? It’s a small world we live in, and I’ve read all about you in the papers, hallelujah and hosanna in the highest. Father has a torn-out page from The Prophet somewhere with this article all about how you learnt to go potty at the ripe age of 2. Bravo.

Also, my grandfather is an EX-Death Eater. He’s seen the light. Forgivness. Redempsion. Amen.

Anyway, you never told me if you like snow, so I’m going to asume you’re a prat who doesn’t. For something sined ‘with respect’, it was a mayty unrespectful letter, you know.

With reluctant hatred,

Scorpius

*

Dear Scorpius,

It’s ‘mighty.’ I’m attaching a Christmas gift of my own.

And I DO like snow.

Best,

Al

*

Dear Al,

Why would you give me a dictionary, thouh? I allready know English.

Snow’s the best, isn’t it?

With fading hatred,

Scorpius

*

Dear Scorpius,

Just so you know, I threw the turnip away.

It’s wet and cold, snow, and there is the dog pee, yes, but it is quite lovely otherwise.

Merry Christmas,

Al

*

Dear Al,

I figured you would.

IT’S THE BEST, SNOW. I’m ~~atouching~~ attaching a snowball in the envelope. It shouldn’t melt, Ulrich is fast.

Merry Christmas back,

Scorpius

*

Dear Scorpius,

Ulrich wasn’t fast enough for it not to melt, but I won’t hold it against him. See you in September.

Take care,

Al

*

Dear Al,

See you in September UNLES I find out where you leave and STALK YOU TO DEATH, MWAHAHAHA!

Best freats,

Scorpius

*

Dear Albus,

Allright, be like that, hate you too!

With loving,

Scorpius

*

Dear Albus,

I meant LOATHING.

Scorpius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The other chapters will be much longer than this one, I promise. Hokey Cokey is not actually a Christmas song as such, I think, but there's a Christmas Hokey Pokey version. Also, you know, hocus pocus, magic, and all that. 
> 
> Will I eventually name a chapter of this after Mariah Carey? Who can tell? 
> 
> Anyway, thank you so so much for reading and please consider leaving a comment if you have any thoughts (or if you don't, and want to, anyway!) or feedback. I love comments like Dobby loves socks, and like Hermione loves social justice, and like Scorpius will soon love Albus <3


	2. a river i could skate away on, December 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I know that with Albus it was always, will it be Gryffindor? will it be Slytherin? But I just can't imagine this boy as anything other than a Ravenclaw. Sorry, but that's just how it is. Also, he's eleven and I somehow made him depressed because... you know that meme with the guy looking at an attractive girl over his shoulder and his girlfriend pulling on his arm all offended? I'm the guy. Angst is the attractive girl. Fluff is the offended girlfriend. That being said, this is still going to be mostly a very light-hearted story. Take this chapter, for instance: it has stalking, discussions of inbreeding and war rhetoric. You know, all that cute stuff. 
> 
> I'm sorry. I just don't know how to be normal anymore. 
> 
> ANYWAY, sections of the letters are crossed out, but like, just imagine that they were properly crossed out on paper and so invisible to the addressee.

Dear Al,

Even though last year you didn’t reply to a total of three (3!) of my Christmas letters, I’ve decided to be forgiving and write you again, anyway, now that I know you’re not a complete prick like my father (and, partly, you yourself) made it out to be. Especially for a Ravenclaw. What is it with you people and tilting your chins up like royalty? No one wants to see your snot, get over yourselves. (Well, not YOU. You always have your head down, and don’t keep eye contact with anyone, and eat toast with cutlery – what’s that all about?) I suppose the self-importance comes with having to guess 3-10 riddles a day, but everyone knows that if we Slytherins had to guess riddles, we’d trick that old eagle knocker into letting us in, correct or not, so what’s the big deal?

Anyway, I realize that our interactions this year were restricted to that game of chess I won against you, and that fateful encounter in the bathroom, and that time you sat on the wrong side of the stands during a Quidditch game, sneezed on me, landed me in the infirmary with a cold, and never visited, even though I spent THREE WHOLE DAYS in there, JUST DYING, hacking my lungs up. I mean, I’m not going to hold it against you, seeing as you were sick yourself (not in the infirmary, though, which, sly, sly), but it was awfully lonely there without anyone for company. There was old Pomfrey, sure, but she’s lost her hearing in one ear already, did you know? Once, I talked to her about my family legacy – all about how father wants me to be good, but not TOO good, and how grandfather wants me to be bad, but not TOO bad, and how the first Malfoys did engage in a bit of inbreeding every now and then, but how the tradition was given up years, centuries, even, ago, and how I was torn between becoming a neo-Death-Eater and a career as an attorney (that was, of course, a joke – at the time I still wanted to be an aeroplane pilot) – only for her to turn around after an hour – an hour! – and go, did you say anything, dear? Apparently, I’d been talking at her left ear, you know, the faulty one. Poor woman. Of course, I started all over again, but she had to go and assist some kid across the room with puking his guts out, and, after that, she was always otherwise occupied.

You might find what I’ll tell you now a bit creepy – call me a stalker, even – but you should think of it strictly as scientific research. After all, can the drosophil melanogaster really say that Thomas Morgan STALKED them? Sure, there was the capturing in milk bottles bit, but it was all for the greater good. Anyway, I followed father’s advice and spent the past few months observing you carefully. Here’s what I’ve noticed:

i. in spite of your grandfather’s well-known and unhealthy obsession with Muggle accessories and appliances, you don’t seem to be aware of the existence of a common hairbrush. Actually, in the first week of school, I asked father to send me one by post and planned on gifting it to you, but I decided against it in the end. It seemed inappropriate. And besides, it does have its charm, your hair, if you’re into stork nests or that old film with Johnny Depp where he has claw-hands and too much make-up and gets to kiss Winona Ryder, the lucky bastard.

ii. in spite of coming from a family well-known not only for their deeds but also for their strong lungs, you seem very quiet and reserved – no broom waving, no yelling, no hair tossing, only the occasional half-gesture. It’s like you really ARE drosophil melanogaster, stuck inside a milk bottle but resigned about it, smart enough to know that trashing won’t do you any good. I think that if there was ever a huge commotion over a seemingly unsolvable problem, you’d be the one to come up with a solution, anyway, only you’d voice it so quietly that no one would hear.

iii. you pretend to pay attention in class, but the reason why you always have your textbook in your hands and not flat on the desk, cover tilted towards the front of the classroom, is because you always keep a different, smaller book folded inside it, ha! By now, I’ve seen you read something called ‘The Waves’ (a sailor’s first hand guide?), a French cookbook (macarons! So do they really eat frogs, then? What about toads?), ‘War and Peace’ (definitely transfigured smaller – how sneaky! – because I found a copy in the library later, and it was heavy enough that, when it fell on my foot, I limped for a week after; also, I vote peace – father became somewhat of a pacifist after his rebellious youth). Remember that time in Potions when I fell out of my seat and got a nosebleed? It was because I’d been craning my neck, trying to read the title off whatever book you were perusing back then, which, in retrospect, was pretty stupid of me, since the name was covered by your textbook, anyway. All those books, Al! Do you want to be a writer or something? Me, I wanted to be a cave excavator for a while, but then I discovered that I’m scared of the dark. Living in the dungeons does that to you, I suppose. My dormitory window (in case it’s supposed to be a secret, don’t tell anyone) gives onto the murky murky MURKY depths of the lake, and I swear, sometimes I can hear the rumbling of a dozen stomachs on the other side of the glass. Still, it’s worse when I DON’T hear it because then I’m lying awake WAITING for it.

iv. when not in the school uniform, you wear those absolutely HIDEOUS jumpers. I mean, I assume they’re the infamous Potter-Weasley garments each of you gets subjected to every year, but where your siblings/cousins only wore the knitwear once or twice before going away for Christmas, you were wearing the jumpers all semester long, each 2 to 3 sizes too big, and didn’t seem self-conscious about it at all. I mean, me, with my deeply ingrained fashion sense, could never stomach the atrocious winter-wonderland patterns, the squirrels, and the polar bears, and the (shudder) penguins; the purple, and the yellow, and the pink, but you wear them like you were born in one. One would expect you to dress in black, to go with the hair, and the sullen expression, and your corpse-white complexion, but no, there you’ll be in some remote corner of the library, Christmas lights twinkling all over the wool in the shape of a single spermatozoon. What. a. sight.

v. you never eat mushrooms. I have caught you sneaking them onto your friend’s plate one time too many to brush it off as a simple matter of preference, too. I mean, I’m pretty sure that you’re only friends with that girl BECAUSE of the mushrooms, since I’d never seen you talk to her ONCE before they served us the chanterelles, and then suddenly you were making noises at her with your mouth, eyes so wide that she didn’t even notice when you sneaked the mushrooms onto her poor, poor plate. What did the mushrooms ever do to you, Al? They’re not all poisonous, you know. That’s some prejudice right there, how very Death Eater of you. My, my.

vi. you’re very smart but your grades hardly ever indicate that. I mean, I’ve heard you answer some pretty straightforward questions with long philosophical musings like it wasn’t simply a matter of yes and no after all. That other time I fell out of my seat and got a nosebleed? I was trying to lean closer to where you were sitting, to hear you better. What I’m trying to say is, you read all those important-sounding books, and you never fail to answer a question in class – but only when addressed directly! – and then you get a Poor for an essay or get your potion to do something cool, but never what the recipe specified, or never hand your homework in. I suppose I thought that all Ravenclaws studied all day long and collected Outstandings like stamps, but you seem smart in a different way, like you’ll learn, but not what they tell you to, and like you’ll think things through, but not how they expect you to. It’s kind of amazing.

vii. you bite your nails all the time, in a sort of frantic way, like you’re trying to chew your way to something there, under your skin. Your hands are a mess – I’ve seen them during our Herbology class, all dried blood and flaky skin. What are you trying to do, eat yourself out of existence or something? We might not know each other well, and we might not be friends, but I can tell it would be a shame, anyway.

viii. you said that snow was quite lovely in one of last year’s letters, but when it fell for the first time this year and Rose Weasley dragged you outside, you stared at all that white like you were lost, and didn’t know what to do with yourself. I mean, everyone around you was rolling around in it, making snow angels and snowmen and having fun, and you just stood there. So that snowball that hit you in the back of the head? That was me. See, I just saw that strip of skin at the back of your neck where your ugly Ravenclaw scarf slid low, and I thought, Merlin, this kid should smile. 

And you know what? When Rose was brushing the snow off your jacket, laughing at you, you actually did.

Anyway, you never did flush my head in a toilet, after all. All that urine-tolerance I’d built up, and for what? Father told me to be wary of you and to watch you carefully, and I’m guessing he thought I’d see right through you to some hive of prejudices if I tried hard enough, but all I see is this weird kind of sad that we should both be too young for. I mean, you’re eleven, and it already seems like you’ve given up on something, only I can’t tell what. Remember that time we got our History of Magic essays back, red all over yours and marked Poor? Remember how you balled it up after class and tossed it into a bin?

You don’t know this, but I saw you throw it away and dug that essay out as soon as you were gone. There was pink chewing gum stuck to it, all over, but I read it, anyway, and I see what Binns meant about the paragraphs, and the commas, and the digressions, but I also see what you meant about how people shouldn’t participate in wars, and how no choice can still be a choice, how, even when you’re being sent to the battlefield to die and can’t say no, you still CAN say no, sit down cross-legged right there and then, and let them kill you, and die for not dying. I mean, for me, it was quite Outstanding, and I don’t think you ‘don’t know your commas’. I think that you cared too much to remember about them, is all.

Best,

Scorpius.

P.S. I’m attaching a turnip, for old times’ sake.

*

Dear Scorpius,

Someone worked on their spelling, I see.

I figure I’m not going to post this letter, so I might as well be honest. Mum claims writing is therapeutic, which would be more convincing if she ever wrote anything other than shopping lists herself. Anyway, part of the reason why I eat toast with cutlery is one of the things you mention having observed about me, namely, the nail & cuticle biting. It’s not very appetizing, seeing all those half-scabs, and getting them greasy on top of that. Another reason for it is something that’s often recounted as a funny anecdote at all our family gatherings. Apparently, when I was small, I would cram as much of my toast as I could into my mouth, all at once, and as fast as I could, too, staring at everyone sat at the table wide-eyed ‘as if I expected someone to snatch it right out of my hands any minute,’ as Dad puts it. James says it’s middle child syndrome. Anyhow, once, I almost choked to death that way, and Mum started cutting my toast into even bites before letting me eat it each breakfast. She said it was but a temporary measure, until when I’d grow out of that ‘hamster habit of mine’, but see, the thing is, I never did grow out of it.

As for our interactions this year, I’ll have you know that I only agreed to play chess against you because Rose bullied me into it, holding my copy of Hemingway’s ‘Islands in the Stream’ hostage. She claimed it was making me depressed, but after much pleading on my part, she reluctantly agreed to give it back under one condition: I had to socialize for one afternoon, and the game was the form she picked for that specific kind of torture. You might have noticed I wasn’t really THERE during the game, which was mostly because of the book in question. See, I’m very torn about Hemingway, and sort of scared I’ll grow up to be like him, stewing in my own misery and acting like I have a monopoly on beautiful sunsets. I mean, it’s like he (or his character, same difference, really, with that particular book) was this awful guy who didn’t respect women that much, and who romanticized his own pain, and who acted like being tough was all that mattered, and he had this stunted way of expressing himself, repeating some words forever as if they were extra important, even though they weren’t. And then, on the other hand, the book is quite beautiful at times, too, and why SHOULDN’T he write about sunsets and all that misery? He might have been stewing in it, but at least you can tell he wasn’t faking it. Anyway, as lost in thought as I was, you only won that game because I LET you. I’m sorry to say this, but I just didn’t care that much, whereas you seemed so serious, like it was a matter of life and death, let’s duel, throw down the gauntlet, here’s your sword. And I was right, in the end, wasn’t I? I mean, you did run around the table three times after you ‘won,' and you did overturn the board (I still haven’t found the white bishop that managed to hop away amidst the commotion), and you did trip on the carpet and laugh maniacally when your nose hit the floor and started bleeding (what is it with you and nosebleeds? You should get that checked).

By ‘that one fateful encounter in the bathroom’ do you mean that time when I found you there with your hand permanently attached to your crotch? A piece of advice: next time, when someone hexes you, go to the library and try to find a solution instead of hiding in bathrooms. I mean, I suppose I can see how that would be awkward, considering, but the bathroom was pretty awkward, too, when I found you there, wasn’t it? For what it’s worth, I don’t think that somebody’s family name is a good enough reason to hex them, but then, I tend to think that hardly ANYthing is good enough reason to hex someone, which makes me somewhat of a magic cynic, if you will. That, in turn, makes me the black sheep of the family, even if no one ever mentions it aloud, family gatherings or not.

As for the third interaction you mention in your letter – I’m positive it was you who was on the wrong side of the stands. Didn’t all the brown and blue around you clue you in? And I sneezed, yes, but that was three rows down from you, and besides, I wasn’t sick myself, I’m just allergic to, well, EVERYTHING, so I don’t think you caught your cold from me. I do know that you spent a few days in the infirmary, since the lessons were suspiciously orderly during your absence, with no one there to screech about kamikaze pigeons outside the window or explode their cauldron in their face. I like to think that I would have visited you to offer you my notes, had I been better at noting things down in the first place, but it’s a Schrödinger’s cat sort of thing, no use dwelling on it. And, in the end, Rose was a much better fit, wasn’t she? She makes notes like she’ll be graded on it, and the truth is, she once told me that, half the time, she really expects to be.

Another advice: don’t go around mentioning the inbreeding to people. Don’t you know how it goes with rumours? I’m not sociable enough to be up to date with them, but I’ve heard people talk anyway. They’re saying that your father had an affair with your aunt and that it’s a wonder you’re so symmetrical and not a three-legged goat. Personally, I don’t find you all that symmetrical, since you always have your hair parted on the left, and you have that gap between your teeth, not quite in the middle. And then there’s that hidden gap between your second and third molar, right? But I suppose what they mean is that you’re not hunchbacked, and don’t have weird blemishes or extra fingers. Anyway, I know that you yourself are not a product of inbreeding but people are going to make fun anyway, even if I don’t fully understand why. I mean, I suppose I get it on a logical level, how people, designed to appreciate health and strength, would find deformations and any and all defects funny, but I don’t understand it on an empathic level. Queen Victoria’s lover, Prince Albert, was her first cousin, and because they both carried the recessive gene that caused haemophilia, some of their descendants suffered from it later. Her children and grandchildren would die from it, even though she herself hadn’t. I mean, how is that funny? Their (grand)mother slept with the wrong person, and they couldn’t get so much as a papercut because they’d bleed to death. Imagine a wound never scabbing, no matter how long you wait, a slow, patient, red trickle. Who in the world could find that funny?

Oh, and I’m pretty sure Pomfrey heard you. She’s lost hearing in her left ear, that much is true, but even if she had her right ear turned away from you, she’d still be able to hear your voice. So if she didn’t seem to be listening, that’s probably because she didn’t want to listen. You should stop being so naïve if you don't want to keep getting hexed. It doesn’t matter how many speeches about equality Dad gives and how many times aunt Hermione mentions ‘just being yourself’ in interviews (and what about her own teeth, anyway, magically fixed at fourteen, ha) – it’s still survival of the fittest, and neither of us is very fit, so there’s no use adding fuel to the fire by acting all earnest and oblivious.

And it’s drosophilA melanogaster. Surprisingly, I don’t find your research, as you call it, creepy. I’m quite used to everyone staring at me, and at least it seems like you’re genuinely gathering information rather than projecting what you’ve already decided about me on me, assuming I’m a certain way or finding me lacking right away. It’s pretty refreshing, as stalking goes. Now, let me address your so-called ‘observations.’

i. first of all, I do know of hairbrushes, but they’re no good when it comes to my hair. It does what it wants, and it’s better not to cross it. If you let it do its own thing, it might just not absorb egg whites and twigs and paper balls. I know that it must be frustrating for someone as, well, as MALFOY as you, with your carefully combed locks and the perpetual hair-part, but it is what it is. If I’ve learned to tolerate it on my head, you’ll learn to tolerate it across rooms. And as for ‘Edward Scissorhands’, it’s quite good, isn’t it? Sad but good. I don’t know about Winona Ryder, but I remember all that snow.

ii. Maybe it’s the middle child syndrome, too, being quiet. I guess it’s just that in our family everyone’s so loud and has so much to say that you can simply sit there quietly and nobody will notice. And then, after three months of that, they'll just assume you’ve grown up to be quiet instead of having been interrupted one time too many, but it’s fine, because, oh, the irony, you HAVE grown up to be quiet. Anyway, I don’t really mind. I don’t always have arguments ready right away like the others. Sometimes, I need time to think. And besides, it feels like whenever I say something, I’m losing it, you know? Like when I have a thought and then say it aloud, it’s not mine anymore.

iii. ‘The Waves’ is very experimental and really good, and definitely not a sailor’s hand guide, come on. I mean, I’m not going to pretend that I understood even half of it, but the words are so lovely that it doesn’t matter much when they don’t seem to make sense. Take this for instance: ‘Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge of the world into nothingness. I have to bang my hand against some hard door to call myself back to my body.’ Isn’t it beautiful? This must be boring, but I’m not sending the letter, anyway, so it’s fine. And the French do occasionally eat frogs, from what I gathered, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their cuisine. As for ‘War and Peace,’ I did transfigure it smaller, and I’m only halfway through it as of now. I do remember that time you fell out of your seat and got a nosebleed distinctly, since a few drops of the blood fell on the book in question. It was actually ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’, if you still care to know, and the lack of the Oxford comma in the title is driving me crazy only a little. My copy now has your blood forever marking page thirty-three, a very morbid touch that will most definitely speak against me if I’m ever accused of murder and they go through my belongings.

I don’t want to be a writer, not really. All I want is to sit somewhere with a lot of books and lead a peaceful life. Not even that, I'd settle for a peaceful existence. You know, left well alone, always enough tea, all that. And I’m sorry to hear about the lake. Do curtains not help? If it makes you feel any better, the creatures from the lake, I’ve read, aren’t too fond of human meat. Too hard for them, or something like that. Good for chewing, but hard to swallow. Maybe try some herbs before sleep? Merlin, I sound about ninety years old, don’t I? Whatever. 

iv. I don’t mind the jumpers. They are, as you put it, hideous, but Grandma spends so much time making them that it seems cruel not to wear them. She gets more creative with them each year, too. It’s kind of fun. Anyway, they’re warm and cozy and I don’t care about fashion, CLEARLY not like you Malfoys. And it’s not a spermatozoon, what is WRONG with you? It’s the Plough, idiot.

v. the mushrooms ARE the reason I befriended Agnes, but you got everything else wrong. See, that fateful dinner, she was the one who talked to me. She said, “Sorry, I don’t know your name, are you going to be eating those?”, pointing to the chanterelles. I’d spent my whole life being recognized by people I didn’t know before having the chance to introduce myself, Scorpius. It felt so strange to be just some insignificant boy with a plate full of mushrooms that, for a moment, I forgot my own name, and just told her to go ahead, heaping the chanterelles onto her plate. We talked about nihilism and Dickens, and when I finally told her my name was Albus, her eyes didn’t grow big, and she didn’t say “Oh!.” So yes, I befriended her because of the mushrooms, but it wasn't like you think. I quite like them, besides, you know, but Agnes likes them better, so I’m happy to give her my portion everytime they're served.

vi. I hate to break it to you, but I’m not some misunderstood genius. The reason why I sometimes get poor grades is that I’m disorganized, don’t read the instructions carefully, and can’t be bothered. I don’t have any big ambitions, and sure, I’m interested in many things and read a lot, but that doesn’t make me smart. I’m not Einstein, failing classes on my way to rediscovering the world as we know it. I’m just a kid with a slightly-above-average IQ who likes Tolstoy and hates Potions.

vii. it’s never occurred to me to think of it like that, the nail-biting, but now you mention it, ‘eating myself out of existence’ seems very accurate.

It is what it is.

viii. I guess it was just intimidating, all that snow. I mean I’d seen it before, every winter, but, I don’t know, all that white. It felt like some empty forever, one I was ill-equipped for. That snowball really helped, you know. So it was you, huh? I guess I owe you a thank you, snow under my collar notwithstanding.

Don’t despair yet, the piss-tolerance might still come in handy one day. And it’s quite funny, the thought of me going around pushing people’s heads down toilets. I mean, my arms are too noodle-y to keep anyone still like that, for one.

I suppose what I meant in that essay was something my parents wouldn’t agree with me on, and what do I know anyway? I’m lucky enough to live in 'peaceful times', and it’s thanks to them, right? But what I meant was, when someone attacks, you have to fight back or DO you? My dad has nightmares, you know, about killing people, and I know that the fact that he did kill is why I have him now, and why I AM in the first place, but sometimes I imagine everyone just collectively giving up as a protest of a sort, a kind of ‘if the world has to be like this, I’m washing my hands off it.’

I DO care about commas. It drives me crazy when someone else doesn’t use them properly, but, I suppose, as you put it, I cared too much to remember them just then.

And I guess I am too young to be sad, or whatever. Mostly, I’m too young to be thinking about all that stuff. But Lily said it best the other day. I’m no genius, Scorpius. I’m just a freak.

Now, let me repay you in kind with some observations of my own.

i. they call you a Death Eater sometimes. I hear it, you know, hissing, whispering, sneers, but the thing is, you look like you wouldn’t hurt a fly. You might have neat hair and immaculate shirts, but your shoelaces are undone half the time and you have blotches of ink either on your nose or in its proximity most of the time. You smile at everyone, and whenever I see it, my face hurts in sympathy pain. It’s really annoying. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who’s less deadly than you. I’M more of a Death Eater than you.

ii. I was listening when you were being scolded for refusing to transfigure a frog into an eraser, and remembered that thing you’d written in your stupid letters, how you don’t read anything without frogs in it on principle (is that where the French cuisine question came from?). So while you were explaining to the teacher that frogs have FEELINGS and need LOVE and UNDERSTANDING and ACCEPTANCE and should be able to veto being turned into STATIONERY of all things, I opened the window next to me. It hadn’t been open before at all, so, in a way, you could say that I had a hand in your frog’s daring escape. I hope you won’t hold it against me. Anyway, I couldn’t believe that someone cared about stuff like that. It made me think of aunt Hermione and all her house-elves initiatives and how she always goes red-faced when discussing things, as if everything matters, as if everything is important. I suppose everything matters to you, too, even though you trip ten times a day and oversleep and throw snowballs at people, or maybe because of it all. It must be exhausting.

iii. whenever you eat lettuce for breakfast, you have it stuck in that tooth gap of yours for the rest of the day. I find it ironic that you’d talk about molars when there’s a half-inch of space right there at the very front of your teeth set, like a kicked-in door. 

That’s it. I mean, there’s more, but my hand’s all cramped, and, again, after all, I’m not posting this. Anyway, Merry Christmas, I suppose. For what it’s worth, this time I ate the turnip.

Best,

Al

*

Dear Al,

I’m not sure why you ended up sending your letter, but I’m glad that you did!

As for my spelling, believe it or not, I’ve actually read that English dictionary you sent me last year, cover to cover, TWICE. And a few books about frogs, too. And then there were all those school essays… Anyway, I’m all smart now. Nowhere near as smart as you, but that’s okay, because, let’s be honest, who is?

I think it’s cool that you eat your toast with cutlery. Very eccentric. Mysterious even. DIGNIFIED.

Now, look, I won that chess game, fair and square, and you'd have to pry the victory out of my dead hands, only I'd go zombie and wouldn't let you anyway. And of course I was serious about it! There I was, playing against this smart kid, father’s ex-enemy’s child, too, with people watching. It was a matter of honour, Al. (Huh. How very Gryffindor of me, yuck). I’m sorry about your bishop. Hopefully, it escaped in hopes of leading a better life, elsewhere, and not just to mess with you.

As for Hemingway, he sounds like a wanker. I’ve read about him a little before penning this letter (are you impressed with my rich vocabulary? Sure you are!) and I think that, in spite of having only had the three interactions with you, I can safely say that you won’t grow up to be anything like him. You could never pull off the beard, for one. And judging by your father’s build, there’s not much hope for you to grow up all beefy like him, either. Anyway, you don’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d keep a urinal from his favourite bar in his house, and, unfortunately, you won’t get to examine Fitzgerald’s penis, either, since the man’s long dead, and all. So personally? I wouldn’t worry. And as for sunsets, I’m sure that one can write about them without ‘monopolizing’ them, so there’s nothing wrong about pointing it out if you feel that old Ernest does. He’s dead now (and by his own hand, too!), anyway, so it’s not like he’ll get all offended.

I won’t get the nosebleeds checked. I don’t trust doctors.

Let’s not talk about the fateful bathroom encounter anymore. Ever. Please. And I thought James was the black sheep of your family? You know, what with the leather jacket, and the girlfriends, and the explosions?

And are you SURE about the stands? I could swear it was the Slytherin section. Anyway, I’m touched that you noticed my absence. Was it lonely without me? As for Rose, if we WERE graded on our notes, she’d get an Outstanding.

I didn’t know about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, but it seems kind of unfair that their children had to suffer just because they couldn’t keep it in their pants. And who gets horny for their cousin, anyway? Ew. If I had haemophilia, I would get some nasty cut right away and die slowly, loved by many but saved by none. You should see my knees. I’m not even outdoorsy, not at all, but I have all these scars and bruises and God-knows-whats. Moles, too. I even have a cluster of them on my arm that looks just like that jumper of yours, which is to say, like a spermatozoon, or, as you call it, The Ploooough. (Sounds like puking, don’t you think?)

I don’t find it all funny, either, Al. I find it very sad, and I want to do something about it all, like, I don’t know, go yell at everyone who does find it funny or put baby frogs in their shoes, only I would NEVER do that to baby frogs, NEVER EVER.

As for Pomfrey, maybe you’re right, but I don’t see how that makes me naïve. Or I do, I guess, but I don’t agree about the survival of the fittest thing. I’ll add so much fuel to the fire that all the fire brigades in the world won’t manage to put it out. If being an idiot gets me hexed, then so be it. Merlin, I’m being all Gryffindor again. What I mean is, I am going to stubbornly continue being myself because those bullies? They ARE themselves, always, doing what they want, so why shouldn’t I? At least when I do what I want, no one ends up clutching their crotch in front of dozens of people. Hopefully. 

And father might have told me all about you, but he didn’t actually tell me all about you at all. I mean, he only knows who you are in terms of name, status, blood type, all that. He doesn’t know your favourite colour, or your favourite song, or your favourite season, and I don’t either, but I’d like to find out.

i. what do you mean, someone as MALFOY as me? Since when is ‘Malfoy’ an adjective? And I don’t have to learn to tolerate your hair, because I already tolerate your hair. MORE than tolerate it. Accept it. EMBRACE IT, even. LOVE it. Would MARRY it. LOOKING FOR A RING as we speak. 

ii. I see how that would be a problem in your family. I mean, I can HEAR how that would be a problem in your family every time your siblings start arguing over your head, which is always. And I’m sorry if writing this letter – sending it – felt like losing something of yours, but I’m not going to steal all that you told me, I promise. I’ll keep the letter, but from where I’m standing, all these thoughts are still yours.

iii. I’M SORRY FOR BLEEDING ALL OVER YOUR BOOK! I DON’T HAVE ANY SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES IF THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT! (You know, what with being eleven). And ‘The Waves’ quote does sound beautiful, not boring at all! Actually, believe it or not, after reading your letter I went to the local bookshop to get a copy of the book for myself, but they didn’t have anything by this Virginia lady. They said they were focusing on contemporary literature. Apparently, werewolf romances are ‘in’ now. I almost got one for myself but the lady behind the counter said they wouldn't have any frogs in them. Amphibians, they’re not ‘in’ just yet. She advised me to wait a decade or two. ‘These things take time, you know,’ she said wisely, and she must have thought that I wouldn’t catch on, but I know that by ‘these things’ she meant furries. I wasn’t born yesterday. Oh, and I get it! You don’t want to be a writer, you want to be a LIBRARIAN!

iv. YOU’RE a plough! (You’re not, really. I just really wanted to say it).

v. I’m sorry for getting the mushroom thing wrong. It was just the way you were shaking them off your fork, I suppose. Very vigorous. Agnes sounds nice. Is she your best friend, then? I don’t have one. I mean there’s Zabini, and Parkinson, but they’re more like strategic allies/mother hens. They copy my homework and feed me vegetables, but we don’t ever sit together talking about boys and painting each other’s nails in the evenings.

vi. genius or not, you do seem awfully smart, and what 11-year-old likes Tolstoy, anyway? Hey, if your IQ is slightly above average, and mine is slightly below average, do you think it’d even out if we joined forces? I mean, we could rule the world, one day.

vii. please try not to eat yourself out of existence. I’d hate to see you go like that. I’m attaching some plasters in the envelope, for your fingers. I mean, you probably have plasters, but these have Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet printed on them, for luck.

viii. you’re welcome, for the snowball. Maybe next year, I’ll get to throw it in your face, instead, and we’ll make some snow angels together, how about that?

I can’t imagine you shoving people’s heads down toilets, either. I mean, I just laughed myself silly thinking about it. I imagined you with a beard, Hemingway-style, bulling little Scotty Fitzgerald. No, sir, you’re not growing up to be that guy.

Don’t give up on the world just yet, Al. I mean, you’re ELEVEN. I see why you’d want to wash your hands off it, but we should try and change it for the better instead!

i. I pretend not to hear when they call me a Death Eater, but once, I asked one of the bullies if they were accusing me of eating deaf people and said that I would never fit one in my stomach. I thought that was pretty smart of me. Oh, and smiling doesn’t hurt if you do it often enough. The muscles stretch, you know? You should try it.

ii. YOU SAVED GARRETT! (Garrett’s the frog). THANK YOU! LONG LIVE THE FROGS! VIVE LA AMPHIBIA!

iii. lettuce? Really? How embarrassing. Do you think I should get my teeth amputated?

I hope the turnip was nice, Al. Please, write back.

Merry Christmas,

Scorpius

P.S. I saw a shrike outside my bedroom today, and it reminded me of you. I mean, it was sat on this low branch, cocking its head at all the white around, and it seemed kind of awkward and lost. I didn’t throw a snowball at it, because it would probably knock the poor guy out, but I opened the window and tore a slice of bread to shreds and tossed the pieces outside trying to make a trail for him to follow. A few pieces flew off-course, and the shrike didn’t seem interested, so, in the end, all I got from it was a fever, but I think that maybe after I closed the window and looked away, it did eat the crumbs, after all.

*

Dear Scorpius,

It was actually my sister who sent the letter. I was dedicated enough to the allegedly therapeutic act of writing it that I addressed it, and shoved it inside an envelope, too.

Well, I suppose there’s no use crying over spilled potions.

Have you seriously read the whole thing? I can’t imagine what strange words you must have learned. I mean, I’ve never read a dictionary cover to cover.

I appreciate the effort, but I know that eating toast with cutlery is stupid no matter how you look at it ~~. Like everything I do, ever, what else is new?~~

Thank you for the vote of confidence. I suppose I’ll go on maybe-disliking Hemingway, then.

(And what do you mean, I wouldn’t pull the beard off??)

Why don’t you trust doctors?

I really suck at this. I’m sorry. I don’t think I can write a decent letter when I know someone will actually read it. I mean, I’ll try my best, I suppose. ~~It’s just kind of stress~~

I mean, I guess it could be said that James is the black sheep of the family, because yes, the leather jacket, and the girlfriends, and the explosions, but he and Dad actually get on like a house on fire. Mum, too. ~~Not like me~~. Quidditch, you know? Quidditch and being fun, and being Gryffindor, and liking the great outdoors, and actually finding hexes that are supposed to be funny, well, funny. Aspirations, too. Look, I don’t want to come off as feeling sorry for myself, and I don’t want to make it sound like my family is horrible, either. ~~I never would have written it all if I’d known~~ They’re rather great, actually. It’s me who’s a zombie.

 ~~I mean~~

~~I’m getting a headache~~

You know that thing I wrote about the survival of the fittest? ~~I didn’t mean~~ All I meant is that you can be yourself, sure, but it might mean that someone will bash your teeth in. I’m all for a world where people can be whatever they want to be (well, unless they want to be Death Eaters) but we don’t LIVE in that world, so there’s no use acting like we do. It’d be great if you could be yourself and not get hexed, but if you have to choose between the two, ~~isn’t it always better to not get hexed~~ then I suppose it depends on the hex.

How does your father know my blood type? ~~Or was it a joke?~~

i. ‘Malfoy’ became an adjective when I got your first letter last Christmas. The turnip fell out of the envelope, and you stopped being a noun.

ii. they are loud, aren’t they, my family? And don’t worry, I don’t think that you stole my thoughts. ~~Not exactly. Not on purpose. I’m just scared of what you’ll do with them, now you have them.~~

iii. Alright, I’m sorry if it’s weird but, as you’ve probably realized by now, I’ve attached my own copy of ‘The Waves.’ ~~It’s not a big deal.~~ You can give it back whenever, or, you know, never. It doesn’t matter. And don’t feel pressured to read it or anything. I just thought, I mean, since you wanted to. ~~A fair warning, in case you do decide to read it, there’s no plot, not really, and it’s very confusing, and you might HATE it and~~ I guess I could be a librarian, but then I’d have to talk to people, wouldn’t I? I’d rather avoid that.

iv. ~~I wouldn’t mind being a plough if it meant not being an Albus.~~

v. I suppose you could say that Agnes is my best friend, but I don’t think I’m hers. And we don’t talk about boys or paint each other’s nails, either.

vi. I don’t think your IQ is below average. ~~I DO think you might have ADHD~~. Anyway, I don’t think ruling the world is for me, but thanks for the offer.

vii. I fail to see how the most tragic love story of modern cinematography should bring me luck, but I’m using the plasters. Thank you.

~~viii. maybe~~

I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to write. I’m not really fit for changing the world myself, but good luck with that. And DON’T amputate your teeth. ~~The gap is sort of charming~~.

Best,

Al

*

Dear Al,

First of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ‘THE WAVES’! I’ll definitely read it! In fact, I’ve already started. I especially like the bit where Louis talks about being alone in the garden and goes: ‘All tremors shake me, and the weight of the earth is pressed to my ribs. Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. I am a boy in grey flannels with a belt fastened by a brass snake up here.’ It made me feel very Slytherin. I mean, you were right, I don’t understand half of it (actually, much more than just half of it), but it feels like it doesn’t matter that I don’t. But better than the book itself is how you’ve highlighted half of it. Now I know which parts you like best, which is almost all the parts.

Second of all, I’m sorry for reading a letter you had not intended to send! I mean, I couldn’t know, I guess, but you kept saying in it how you wouldn’t post it, and I kept reading, anyway.

That said, I’ve assembled a list of strange words I’ve learned from the dictionary for you.

There’s folderol (trifle, nonsense), widdershins (counter-clockwise, in contrary direction), maverick (unorthodox, an individualist), skedaddle (to run away).

You probably already know these, but they’re my favourites.

I don’t trust doctors because I don’t trust the government. It’s as simple as that. And you don’t suck at letter-writing! (I promise).

I’m sure your family can be great without you being a zombie. I mean your family being great and you being great are not mutually exclusive, are they? So I bet you’re ALL great people, if anything. And if it’s either/or sort of thing, I vote you. I mean, you saved Garrett the frog. There’s no beating that, in my book.

I see what you mean about getting one’s teeth bashed in, but you know what, the thing with being yourself is that we’re eleven, and so too young to even know who we are exactly. And I just can’t stand the thought that I won’t know because of some twat who’ll hex me for fun. I think that it doesn’t matter if you think about it like Quidditch, or if you think of it like chess, as long as you at least try to win, and not because of ‘survival of the fittest.’ How about something like ‘survival of the most hopeful,’ instead?

Father doesn’t actually know your blood type, I don’t think. I mean, he doesn’t even know his own. If he ever got into an accident, the healers would just have to wing it.

I hope he won’t be in an accident, ever.

I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE YOU SENT ME YOUR COPY OF ‘THE WAVES.’

~~You know, today this beautiful Christmas bauble fell off our tree. It had been the loveliest, all blue-red and with golden glitter here and there, and it fell, just like that. The branch was too heavy, or the house is haunted, or God, who knows? It broke, of course, and into like a million pieces, too. They were just EVERYWHERE, you know, and father stood there and stared at the mess, speechless. He had those black socks with green toes on, and you’d think that being thirty-six years old and an aristocrat, he wouldn’t have feet like some scrawny teenage boy who doesn’t wear shoes because he doesn’t HAVE shoes, and yet! He looked so scared, like because of that one broken bauble, our Christmas was ruined. I mean, I think that when he and mother divorced, it must have been just the same, a too heavy branch, a haunted house, or God, something shocking and unexpected and terrifying.~~

~~I don’t know if he loved mother but I know that he loves me at least, only thinks he doesn’t know how to.~~

Hey, Al, you and me, we should be friends, what do you say?

Bestest of the best,

Scorpius

*

Dear Scorpius,

~~Alright, let’s be friends.~~

Alright, let’s be friends.

Best,

Al

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and please let me know what you think <3
> 
> (Also, I feel the need to admit that I have done no research whatsover when it comes to this story so if I mention someone who should be dead in 2017 or a spell that doesn't exist, feel free to tell me that I'm stupid)
> 
> (Well, actually I am researching the Christmas songs. But not, you know, all the relevant stuff).


	3. the sound of one man walkin' through the snow can break your heart, December 2018

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all had good Easter, religious or not! 
> 
> (Albus's Christmas wasn't the nicest, I might have lied about the abundance of fluff)

Dear Al,

I told father about being friends with you. I know that it might seem ridiculous that it should be A Big Deal, but see, I’ve managed not to mention you in my letters home (he would write, is young Potter bullying you, and I would write back, no, young Potter is not bullying me, and he would write do you talk to him at all, and I would write back pigeons sure are funny – because he was a coward and didn’t actively participate in the war, he did not recognize the tactical diversion) so I knew that it would come as a great shock to the old man. For all I knew, it could even give him a stroke and then I’d have to live with mother ~~who doesn’t love me~~.

Anyway, I thought about it a lot, before I told him, how our grandfathers – yours and mine – had been on two different sides of the same conflict, and how he and your father had, too, and how it left a bad aftertaste. And I remembered how you’d lent me that copy of 'Anna Karenina.' See, the thing with 'Anna Karenina' is that a) I didn’t understand most of it, b) it made me curious about things. While I was reading it, I wondered if Tolstoy was right when he said that all unhappy families were unhappy in their own way, and I wondered why compare Vronsky to a murderer, and I wondered about the train thing, but you know what I never, not even for a second, thought to wonder about?

I never once wondered whether Tolstoy had been a Muggle.

I tried to be sly about it, Al.

Our conversation went something like this:

Drawing room: _ugly, off-white walls, strange, supposedly priceless sculptures of twined limbs that bring orgies and mass murders to mind, a purple sofa with vanilla ice cream stains that magic wouldn’t work on, which causes visitors to arch their eyebrows every time, a piano no one ever uses, broken quills scattered all over, and a bathrobe slung over the back of a mahogany chair._

Malfoy Junior: [with a practiced air of aristocratic innocence – ‘too rich for bad intentions’, cheeks Little-Lord-Fauntleroy pink] What’s your favourite colour?

Malfoy Senior: [suspicious anyway, the snake] Green.

Malfoy Junior: [innocent-er still] And if you had no past?

Malfoy Senior: [with a note of impatience, waving a spatula around, pretending he knows how to cook, even though they’re not in the kitchen and he’s been using it to try and reach an itchy spot on his back in spite of Malfoy Junior’s assurances that a fork would work better] What do you mean, if I had no past?

Malfoy Junior: [animated, inspiring, Napoleon if he were taller and less morally questionable] Like, if you weren’t a wizard, or a Pureblood, or a Malfoy, never sorted into Slytherin, more than that, never a person, never a man, never an anything, you’re born right this very second, you see the world, and all the colours are wonderful, but you have to pick one, just one. 

Malfoy Senior: [somewhat defensively] I don’t like green only because it’s a Slytherin colour.

Malfoy Junior: [not buying it for a second] Oh, whyever then?

Malfoy Senior: [with lettuce stuck between his teeth] I don’t have time for this, Scorpius.

Malfoy Junior: [sighs with godly patience] Now, don’t be like that. It’s unbecoming.

Malfoy Senior: [throws the spatula. it hits the wall behind Malfoy Junior, and it’s left open to interpretation whether Malfoy Senior intended to hit his son with it and missed, or didn’t want to hit his son with it and didn’t miss] OH JUST— I suppose it’s the opposite of war, green.

Malfoy Junior: [displeased] This is not how this was supposed to go at all.

Malfoy Senior: [arching his eyebrows, convinced he’s only arching one, yet incapable of ridding himself of the stubborn symmetry of his Malfoy face] Oh?

Malfoy Junior: [patiently-er still] You were supposed to realize that if you hadn’t been a Slytherin, you would have liked a different colour best, yellow, or blue, or pink, whichever. It was supposed to be a metaphor. Against prejudice. Ave Maria, Vive la révolution!

Malfoy Senior [lovingly horrified] I blame my sperm.

Mafoy Junior: [after a deep breath] I’m friends with Albus Potter.

Malfoy Senior: [vaguely amused, the bastard] Yes I know.

Malfoy Junior: [surprised] ?!?!?!?!?!#*~!&&&!

Malfoy Senior: [ seemingly unperturbed] I hired a private investigator to check up on you every now and then. Also, when I asked about him, you started going on and on about pigeons.

(Yes, technically I knew that he’d seen through my tactical diversion when I started this letter, but I wanted you to experience the plot twist like I'd had to myself, to better understand the whole exchange and reach eventual katharsis).

I was devastated, Al. Devastated but relieved.

Anyway, father said he didn’t mind, as long as you didn’t have fleas. He said it ran in the family, and that I should check with you. Now, I know that you don’t have fleas, and that your father doesn’t, either, but if you did, I wouldn’t mind at all! It sounds pretty cool! Like pets, only you don’t have to remember to give them food and clean after them.

Well, he’s accepted you. He will send a goat over soon. You should receive it in 3-5 business days.

Just joking!

(Or AM I?)

He even said that I could invite you over, whenever, after I’ve made sure about the fleas. To show him my gratitude, I decided to paint the inside of the house green when he went to get Christmas gifts for all our relatives in Azkaban. We always visit around Christmas – sometimes, you can bribe the Aurors with candy and they’ll let you chat for a bit longer than the agreed three minutes and twenty-six seconds. It’s a decent timeframe unless someone decides to list off all the wizards they gleefully killed (which, in most cases, requires circa five minutes) or, Merlin forbid, all the wizards they regret not having killed (up to fifteen minutes, and sometimes including the poor visitors themselves – “should have been you, Draco” they’ll say, pointing to their receding hairline).

(I know that visiting Azkaban on Christmas sounds a bit morbid, but it’s actually sort of nice, going around and handing out lumpy chicken soup. It’s a bit of a Russian roulette, because you never know if they’ll eat the soup or dump it over your head. Father often smells like grease and cooked carrot on Christmas Eve.)

So anyway, I decided to paint the inside of the house green, only I started very chaotically, the middle of this wall first, the corner of that next, dramatic sweeps of the brush to best reflect my father’s inner turmoil, and wouldn’t you know it, I ran out of paint halfway through. Of course, as you’d expect from a Slytherin, I thought of a solution to the problem right away. I heard father enter the house (“I’m back and didn’t buy you a thing, you heathen!” yelled lovingly up the stairs) and executed my masterful plan, which is to say, I lay down, covered myself with a carpet and pretended to be dead.

In my defense, it works with bears.

Anyhow, I’m grounded now, but I don’t mind too much. There’s a roof over my window, but if I lean outside far enough, I can catch snow in my mouth. It tastes like Christmas Eve and dreams and good things. You should try it if you haven’t yet.

Best,

Scorpius

*

Dear Scorpius,

It’s ironic, but soon after receiving your letter, I read this in 'Written on the Body': “In a vacuum all photons travel at the same speed. They slow down when travelling through air or water or glass. Photons of different energies are slowed down at different rates. If Tolstoy had known this, would he have recognised the terrible untruth at the beginning of Anna Karenina? 'All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own particular way.' In fact it's the other way around. Happiness is a specific. Misery is a generalisation. People usually know exactly why they are happy. They very rarely know why they are miserable.”

I don’t know if my family is one of the happy ones. I think that we’re the kind of happy that’s an absence of bad things rather than a presence of good things. I remember all those cliché things, tents in the middle of the room, lullabies whenever someone got drowsy, flashlight helmets to play excavators (you would have loved it, since you wanted to be one), and everyone laughing (good-naturedly?) whenever I’d fall off the broom. There was colourful cereal and a rope made from the Weasley jumpers tied together by the sleeves to run away, only there was nothing to run away from. Now, everyone says ‘the war is over’ far too often, like it’s proof we’re okay. I mean, it’s been over for, what, two decades now? And Dad still wakes up screaming sometimes – screaming so loud that I hear Mum sneaking downstairs to make him milk with honey, for the throat.

~~And then there’s James, who can’t stand me, and breaks my things, and calls me names, and says, oh, truly Outstanding, Al, whenever I do something like uncapping a bottle of milk or flushing the toilet, to mock my grades. He took that letter from you, too, climbed the coffee table and cleared his throat, pretended to read, with everyone in the room: Dearest Albie Schmalbie, I miss you I love you I kiss my pillow when you’re not here (insert loud smacking sounds and spittle flying every which way like we had an infuriated llama or a raincloud in the room), and it’s not like anyone believed him that it was really there in the letter, but I couldn’t stand it anyway and yelled that I hated him, and instantly wanted to take it back because he seemed so caught-off-guard, like maybe I’d really hurt him, so I opened my mouth to apologize, only then he laughed and said that he hated me, too.~~

~~Is your family happy or unhappy?~~

Do you think happiness really is specific?

Also, I don’t have fleas. And I don’t think it works like what you described. You do feed them, in a way, with, you know, your own blood.

I’ve heard terrible things about Azkaban. Aunt Hermione, she started advocating for improvement of conditions there recently. She says it’s inhumane, what they’re doing, only whenever she brings it up, someone always says that following Voldemort was inhumane, too, and that Dementors no longer guard the prisoners, so what’s the problem? “The problem,” she said in one interview, “is that Aurors won’t suck your soul out, but will kick you in the ribs if they feel like it.” She used to go there every now and then, to talk to the prisoners, but after 'that interview stunt’, as everyone in the family refers to it, two things happened: uncle Ron started sleeping on our couch every other night, and the Aurors stopped letting aunt Hermione enter the island.

All those peace talks, and all those speeches, and for what, when it’s the same old eye for an eye? I tried to talk to Dad about it once, and he sat me down, and said, Al, see, sometimes these things need to be done. Sometimes— Sometimes there’s no space for idealism.

I hate when they call it idealism. What’s idealistic about not wanting somebody to be kicked around when they’re already stuck in a cell the size of a shoebox, eating stale bread and talking to rats?

~~James heard me say it all and called me a traitor, said I was a Death-Eater apologist, and to shut the fuck up, couldn’t I see I was making Dad upset?~~

~~He said, “those people – and I’m being generous, calling them that – killed Teddy’s parents, and you want them to what, live in luxurious cells with a jacuzzi installed in each?”~~

~~The hero.~~

So what happened with the walls in the end?

And be careful when you lean out the window. Isn’t your room on the second floor, or something?

~~I did try snow and it tasted so lonely that I thought I would cry.~~

I did try snow and it tasted like dog piss. I suppose we’re both immune, now.

Best,

Al

P.S. Another thing I’ve read in 'Written on the Body': “You were a brightly lit room and I shut the door. You were a coat of many colours wrestled into the dirt.”

I’m so scared of doing this to someone. I’m so scared I will miss someone wonderful. How could something so awful ever happen? ~~I can’t stop thinking about it and I can’t sleep.~~

*

Dear Al, ~~~~

We’re friends, remember? I saw you puke into your shoe after you’ve stepped on a slug (very ironic, considering you only had it in hand because you’d taken it off after stepping on poor Marvin), you don’t have to censor yourself! And you know that I could just check what you’ve crossed out with a spell, right? Not that I will, that would be a breach of trust!

(Sorry for the blot of ink, but I remembered something funny and my hand slipped. See, whenever I use the word ‘breach’ I always remember that thing about octopuses, how the males have that one extra sperm arm and have to insert it into the female’s mantle cavity?)

(It stops being quite so funny when you remember that the females only stay alive long enough to watch over the eggs and then die. I hope I never grow up. I’m too young and beautiful for father to die on me.)

Anyway, I think maybe Tolstoy was both right and wrong. Or maybe he just sat there at his desk, with a fancy typewriter, and wanted to start a novel with something that would be remembered. Maybe he wrote that thing about families as a lure, look, look, good writing!, and didn’t feel too strongly about it.

Or maybe he was never happy, and didn’t know that happiness could be specific?

(I hope not.)

Father wakes from nightmares, too, but I don’t make him milk with honey, because he likes for me to pretend I haven’t heard every time. He eats sleeping pills like tic tacs and sometimes, in the morning, his skin looks like paper, like if I touched his cheek, it would tear and rip.

But what are the fleas to do? I mean, it’s not polite to drink somebody’s blood without asking, true, but it’s either that or death for them, right?

As for Azkaban, most of those prisoners are horrible people, and most of the Aurors seem alright, but there are exceptions. If someone calls your wife a dirty M-blood one time too many, are you allowed to snap and give them a black eye or throw a few stinging hexes? Does the fact that the prisoners can never leave make it acceptable for them to yell insults?

I don’t know much about the world, and I still swallow snot when I have a cold instead of blowing my nose, but here’s what I think: when you’re locked in a cage, the cage shouldn’t just keep you in. It should also keep others out. If you lock someone up in a box, you need to let them be awful inside it, because they have nothing besides that box. It’s like not letting someone be horrible inside their head.

I do wish they stopped using the M word, though.

(We actually bumped into your aunt there last year. I think maybe what your family doesn’t realize and should is that she’s not there merrily chatting to the prisoners. I mean, even I could see that she hated them, and was simply trying her best not to, cross-armed and shaking like a leaf. When one of father’s adopted uncles spilled the chicken soup on him, she spelled father’s shirt clean and lent him a handkerchief. She was very nice to me, too, told me that I’d grown up handsome for a ferret’s son, even though I wasn’t grown up OR handsome OR a ferret’s son).

(Just kidding, I was and am very handsome.)

I don’t think you’re idealistic, Al. I think that maybe you’re too good for this world and that you’re a coat of many colours yourself, and they better not wrestle you into dirt.

In the end, we painted the walls green-blue. Now it looks like the bottom of a lake on a clear day, and I think that when I go back to Hogwarts, it will make hearing the water and sleeping through it easier. Father wasn’t really angry, you know, just pretending. Sometimes, he tries very hard to be stern, because he has this fear that if he’s not stern, I’ll grow up to be a drug-addict or something. And he DID buy me a Christmas present. I know, because I found it in his school-memorabilia trunk (an assortment of combs, a half-empty bottle of hair gel, Slytherin ties and scarves, and a magical badge about how your father stinks), already wrapped. I was tempted to take a peek, but, in the end, I restrained myself.

I got him something, too. It’s cufflinks with a miniature of my face on them. He’ll LOVE them.

There’s so much snow that even if I fall out of my window, I’ll be fine! And it’s third floor, actually.

Huh. Both immune to piss, only no bullies. What a waste.

Anyway, I was listening to Fleetwood Mac yesterday, you know, “Seven Wonders”? And I know that’s not what the song is about (actually, I have no idea what the song is about) but here’s my music-inspired list of wonders. Seven, too, to be consistent (the song, Voldemort’s infamous Horcruxes, all that).

i. CHOCOLATE! Chocolate in all forms, because I would kiss it and dance with it and dance in it – imagine a rain of chocolate, Al! Then, I would go around and kiss (lick, even!) everyone, and they’d lock me up in Azkaban myself, for being a pervert (chocovert?).

ii. that snow tastes different every time, but always smells the same.

iii. how that guy in that painting, the bald one that’s holding his head, could be screaming in terror but could also be shocked, like maybe he’s seeing two people who supposedly hate each other kiss right there on that bridge, like maybe it’s nothing scary at all.

iv. yesterday, father fell asleep on the carpet and there was a spider on his face. Father’s mouth was tilted open, and I watched as the spider walked trot-trot-trot right up to it, perched on father’s lip, and then turned back and left. Father sighed, turned onto his side, and said, Mum?

v. that one sentence in 'The Waves' where Bernard says “And my hair is untidy, because when Mrs Constable told me to brush it there was a fly in a web, and I asked, ‘Shall I free the fly? Shall I let the fly be eaten?’ So I am late always.”

vi. ~~how when we study together, you chew on your pencils, and when you run out, you start chewing on mine and don’t even realize – how later, I find their ends split and still wet, still warm.  
~~

vi. how you let me win, that time we played chess last year. I actually knew, at the time.

vii. Instead of buying wrapping paper, father wrapped my Christmas present in a white sheet with clumsy scorpions drawn all over it in crayon.

What about your seven wonders?

Best,

Scorpius

*

Dear Scorpius,

Why would you name a slug? And a stepped-on slug, too?

It’s not just octopuses, is it? I don’t understand the world or people or anything I’m wearing three jumpers all at once and I’m trying not to cross things out and James just said that if I like Death Eaters so much I should go live with you ‘since I’m invited’ (he read your letter) and my suitcase is half-packed even though I would never impose on you and am actually going to, I don’t know, camp outside King’s Cross or maybe take a bus to aunt Luna’s place and I don’t even know how to pack at all because so far I’ve packed fifteen pairs of socks, no underwear, a colander, and no shirts.

Maybe I’ll just go back to school early.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think your father will die anytime soon. He looks like the sort of person who’d argue death right out of his house.

I would go to aunt Hermione’s, but then it’d turn into a whole Thing, she’d go see my parents, and she’d have to bump into uncle Ron – who’s built a makeshift poodle out of empty beer bottles connected with duct tape in out living room – and there would be all those Serious Conversations, and James would scoff, and Lily would roll her eyes, and Mum would be angry, and Dad would be troubled, and Grandma would cry, and Grandpa would give uncle Ron tips on the proper use of duct tape, and someone would throw that ugly lamp we got from uncle Percy a few years ago, and uncle Percy would never forget it.

Anyway, that sounds like aunt Hermione, what you described. It made me smile, and there’s not much to smile about right now.

I’m not a colourful coat, Scorpius. Please don’t say things like that. I mean, I can’t stand it. I just can’t stand reading it, because it’s nice, and kind, and I want to melt into the floorboards until I’m just a leak they’d have to deal with with one flick of the wand, and I want to never have existed, and I’m awful, James is right, Lily is right, Dad is right, even though he never said I’m awful aloud, and I have scoliosis, and I will probably die by the age of twenty-six anyway.

Please don’t fall out the window. Please.

Here’s my seven wonders:

i. sometimes, I dream that I don’t exist.

ii. Rose gave me 'Autobiography of Red' because she ‘couldn’t wait till Christmas,’ which is just as well, since I doubt I’ll be there for the holidays, busy being hated and ostracized and elsewhere.

iii. people don’t actually eat spiders in their sleep. Spiders steer clear of mouths, which pose a threat, what with the warmth and the wet and the breathing. The one you wrote about must have been an oddball.

iv. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. Trains. I like trains.

v. alright, but consider this: what if it SNOWED chocolate, instead?

vi. You.

vii. there are birds, somewhere, in the woods, that know nothing about all this.

So there you go, my honest, no-censorship letter, full of feeling sorry for myself and being pathetic. I stepped into a puddle of orange juice before, and my socks are sticky and wet, and all my other socks are already packed, and I hate being barefoot more than I hate orange juice, so I have to keep them on. Bye, for now. Merry Christmas, I’ll think of you on my way to some ditch where I will die or not,

Al

*

Dear Scorpius,

It sure was a sight when I opened the door with a suitcase in hand and saw your father there on the doorstep, all flushed, fist raised. I know that he’d been about to knock, but I thought – stupid and unfair, I know – that he was about to hit me, so I tripped backward, and when I fell, my suitcase opened and all the socks flew out of it and rained down all over the floor.

Anyway, after your father and mine finished talking (a lot of mostly good-natured insults, three tea refills, and a passionate game of noughts and crosses), Dad sat me down on the carpet (since the couch had a passed-out uncle Ron on it still) and told me that he loved me very much, and so did Lily, and so did James, and that sometimes he worried that I was too smart for my all good, but he wouldn’t have me any different.

Yeah, right.

I mean, I suppose it was nice. He didn’t suggest a Quidditch game, at least. We tried to solve a crossword together, and he laughed when I guessed three-quarters of it right away. He explained that everything was difficult, what with aunt Hermione and uncle Ron arguing, and that he too didn’t think treating prisoners badly was alright, but that sometimes he dreamed of treating them badly himself because they’d killed so many people he loved.

I still don’t know how I feel about it all, but he said that there was a reason I had been sorted into Ravenclaw, and James into Gryffindor, and that hopefully we would recognize our differences and keep ourselves from killing each other.

I don’t know, Scorpius. I think the piss-immunity might come in handy, after all.

Thank you for sending your father over, I guess. I mean, I don’t know. I suppose that’s like if I went to your house and made sure you couldn’t fall out the window instead of asking you to be careful, only I don’t have the guts.

Please be careful?

Merry Christmas again,

Al

*

Dear Al,

I’m sorry! I just panicked! I imagined you freezing to death in some ditch, a colander for a hat. Father says you wrote down a will just in case. Thank you for leaving me all of your fifteen pairs of socks, but please, don’t ever do anything like that again. Also, I would put slugs in James’s shoes, only it’s not the season for slugs, and I’d feel bad for them besides. They’d probably all drop dead right away, anyway, from the stench.

I don’t want you to turn into a leak when I say nice things, but I don’t want to not say nice things, either. You’re my very important friend, alright? I can tell you that you’re ugly and stupid and boring if that will make you feel better, but only if you promise to always know that it’s never true.

If it snowed chocolate, I’d make so many snow angels. You don’t even know, Al.

Anyway, we’re both down with a cold, father and I, so I’m sorry but I’m falling asleep and can’t think and letters are double triple. I’m attaching your Christmas present.

Not leaning out the window anymore, bedridden, and Sincerely Yours,

Scorpius

*

Dear Scorpius,

Here’s your present, then, and some cough syrup, too. It’s better than anything they sell in pharmacies, uncle Neville’s recipe.

Best,

Al

P.S. You know, for a turnip encyclopedia, it’s a surprisingly engaging read.

P.P.S. Don’t feel pressured to read 'Orlando,' but do take the syrup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much and please let me know your thoughts! <3


	4. i get a little warm in my heart when I think of winter, December 2019

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from Tori Amos's Winter, which isn't really a Christmas song but a) it has all that strained child-parent relationship thing and b) the line 'When you gonna love you as much as I do' is the perfect summary of this story. Also c) it's beautiful
> 
> Anyway, this took me a while but it's long aaand not all the letters are between Al and Scorpius cause I wanted to try something different

Dear Scorpius,

I’m first this year, ha. You might not believe this but it took me only three minutes after we said goodbye to each other to slip on the ice and break my arm in three places. In my defense, as you know, I’m lactose-intolerant, so naturally, my bones don’t have enough calcium to deal with my bullshit without – literally – snapping. I tried to keep it in but ended up yelling so much that now not only is my arm broken, but so’s my throat. Well, not broken, but speaking more than one sentence at a time is proving to be difficult and causes me to tear up, which James mercilessly makes fun of. I can’t exactly communicate through gestures, either, since, well, the broken arm. Thankfully, it’s the left one, so I can still write if I pin the top of the letter with something heavy. I spelled 'War and Peace' back to its original size for this very purpose. 

Anyway, when Aunt Hermione was fighting for more responsible healing last year I was very supportive of her cause and even helped her make banners for all those protests even though I felt hopeless despair all the while, convinced that change was impossible, but I’ve since come to regret my engagement in the whole affair. I mean, just two years ago, they would have regrown my arm overnight and yeah, sure, maybe statistics show that it could cut ten years off my life, but they don’t know for sure it’s hurried healing that does it, and it’s not like I care anyway. Ten years less in this hell sounds good, actually. Can you believe that the other day when we refused to eat the charcoal that once was eggs Mum told us that we should be grateful because we owe her our lives? Why should I be grateful for having been brought into this world? I mean, realistically? Also, James was planned but I was an accident so why should I thank her for being the side effect of their prolonged honeymoon phase? 

The worst thing is that we were supposed to go to a ski resort for Christmas (because Quidditch is not enough for those junkies, of course) and now James keeps saying that I broke my arm on purpose so we wouldn’t go, Dad keeps saying we should still go ‘because you’d stay holed up inside the whole day reading books anyway, Al’, and Mum keeps saying that even if that’s true, there’s a difference between staying behind because you want to and staying behind because you have to (even if you still want to) and that we should all stay home so I won’t be lonely. I myself keep saying that I’m in a perpetual state of loneliness even when surrounded with people and even when surrounded with redheads (not that the two are mutually exclusive, I mean, it’s not the Middle Ages anymore), and that in turn always makes Dad promise that he’ll look up shrinks for me but he always gets distracted, either by that Snitch James let loose three days ago that no one can catch even though they’re all so very excellent at the broom hockey, or by that raccoon that keeps trying to steal our garden gnome (if you think it’s a joke, think twice: the other day, the little thief carried it halfway down the street before anyone realized) or by how Lily’s skirts keep getting shorter and shorter (she told him that she’s shortening them to donate the scraps to charity, to which he asked if she thought he was stupid, to which she said that yes, she did, to which he said we wouldn’t see flavoured cereal till New Year’s).

I’d really be fine with going to the resort and staying in front of the fireplace all day, you know, but I don’t know if anyone cares about my opinion on the matter. I could technically go to the Burrow since Grandma's offered but they're already busy with trying to fix aunt Hermione and uncle Ron over there. Hopefully, your Christmas will be better than mine.

On a different note, a Squib has moved in across the road. She’s seventy-one years old and her name is Gretchen. She called me over when I was trying to scare that raccoon away the other day by tossing James’s Quidditch players figurines at it because she wanted me to help her move her bins. She noticed the sling when I was crossing the road and told me to ‘forget it, don’t need an amputee to mess with my things.’ She didn’t recognize me at all, either, and when she learned that her neighbour was none other than Harry Potter she asked me how much we charged for our fruit bowls and if we painted them, too. I felt obliged to explain all about the saving-the-world business but she seemed unimpressed. “Saved the world now, did he?” she said, examining my sling. “I thought that was Napoleon.” She thinks that Napoleon invented democracy, can you believe? I didn’t explain that, though, because I had the feeling that it would make her sad, and besides she gave me toast with some homemade lavender jam so I wasn't going to argue politics with her, especially politics in the 1800s. 

~~Anyway, we got to talking, and I happened to mention you. I told her that you're the only person I’m not related to that I associate with, and she said that I should keep you close because inbreeding is frowned upon nowadays. I then clarified right away but she didn’t believe me when I insisted we’re just friends. Look, she said, when you’re my age, you’ll want legacy. After that, I gave up on explaining that we’re not romantically involved and decided to try and tackle reproduction instead. Yes, she’s seventy-one, but who am I to judge? So I explained best I knew how all about sperm and fertilization and all that, and she listened, patiently nodding her head. When I was finished she told me that she knew all about that, of course, but she’d assumed that after all this time we wizards must have come up with some way to ensure same-sex reproduction. She sounded all disappointed, too. Look at Muggles, she said, shaking her head, with their Internet and their skyscrapers and their Lady Gaga, and what are you lot doing? After that, I went back to trying to convince her that we’re not dating. I told her that you’re not gay, and that I’m not mentally stable, and that we’re only thirteen anyway, to which she said that at my age, she’d already had five boyfriends and one of them was an heir to a dominant street gang at the time. Then I told her that no one would ever like me because I had spots, and she nodded sagely, which I appreciated because I hate false pleasantries. She told me I looked like half a colander, thin, inanimate, and full of holes, and then she made me a cup of truly disgusting coffee. She said it was arabica grains with a secret ingredient, and I’m tempted to think that the secret ingredient was actually compost but she promised it was good for the spots so I forced myself to finish it.~~

Merry Christmas, Scorpius. Don’t break anything.

Best,

Al

*

Dear Al,

You absolute idiot! Does it still hurt? Listen, let your family go to the resort! You should spend Christmas with me and father! We’ll have caviar because baby fish are full of nutrients, and we’ll sing 'Last Christmas' at the top of our lungs because as social recluses we don’t have any neighbours, me and father, and can get as loud as we want (which works out perfectly when he’s yelling at me for being a flea-infested Hippogriff-lover and when I’m yelling at him for having given me ugly toes), and we’ll make a broken-armed snowman for solidarity. Or if you want I can break my own arm for solidarity, too.

(Also because Father says girls are into injuries. He claims that’s why your dad was popular in school. He said, quote unquote, stupid Potter, broken glasses, broken arm, broken brain.)

Look, I know you’ll say no because you won’t want to impose, but please don’t say no.

Anyway, I’m sending a letter to your parents, too.

Best,

Scorpius

*

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Potter,

If you give me Albus, I will pay you three galleons and a pinecone.

Sincerely yours,

S. H. M. 

*

Dear Scorpius,

You WHAT?

Al

*

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Potter,

It has been brought to my attention by father, Albus, and also by you yourself that my letter was not the most tactful. Let me rephrase my request:

Send Albus over and I will pay you four galleons and a pinecone. Please.

Sincerely Yours,

Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy of the Malfoys. 

*

Dear Potter,

Look, just ignore my idiot son and send the kid over if you dare. I promise, we won’t stuff this year’s turkey with him.

Best,

Malfoy

* 

Dear Malfoy,

He’s on the way. Waiting for the promised four (4) galleons and one (1) pinecone.

Best,

Potter

*

Dear Rose,

I still can’t quite believe I’m spending Christmas at Malfoy Manor so let me describe it to you first as an attempt at grounding myself. The house (though ‘house’ seems very plebeian in this context) is equipped with twenty-eight fancy candelabras (“Grandma had to sell most of those after the war” Scorpius explained, unperturbed, when I asked about it -- apparently he assumed that I was surprised they didn’t have more of those) seventeen even more fancy paintings (one of which is of Lucius Malfoy himself and always stays quiet – story goes a few years back Scorpius’s father got tired of all the witty, unasked for comebacks, grabbed some paints, and added tape to the painting across Lucius's mouth so he'd keep it shut and, wonder of wonders, it actually worked), and three beds with canopies (one was even offered to me but later that same evening Scorpius announced that I couldn’t sleep in it because it had bedbugs. I investigated it right away and didn’t find any bedbugs but the bedroom itself seemed very dreary and isolated, two corridors away from Scorpius’s own, so I confirmed that I did indeed find bedbugs there and now we’re sharing Scorpius’s bed, which is fine since it’s the size of three beds put together). It’s caught halfway between a castle and a ruin, the Manor, a bit like I imagine Versaille would look after getting ploundered, marks of wealth everywhere but pale spots on the walls and on the floor where expensive things used to be and aren’t anymore. Missing paintings, missing chairs, missing instruments, and all that.

~~Yesterday at dinner, Scorpius’s father told me that they sold most of the stuff to pay war reparations but that they burned some of it, too. Apparently, they broke every chair Voldemort ever sat in, him and Scorpius’s grandmother, and fed the pieces to the fireplace.~~

There are secret passages in the house and Scorpius says that he’d found most of them by the time he was six ~~and would hide there whenever his parents argued so he wouldn’t hear the screams, and would hide there after the divorce, too, so he wouldn’t hear the quiet.~~

When you say something quietly here, no one hears it. When you say something loudly, it echoes. Sometimes I get lost on the way to one of the bathrooms, and when Scorpius calls my name half an hour later, I take a wrong turn and find myself in a room I haven’t seen before. It’s all very 'The Secret Garden.' There’s no house-elves, and some of the walls are purple. The fireplace is always blazing in the drawing-room downstairs and Scorpius keeps tossing chestnuts into the flames. They keep mistletoe over every doorway but no one gives anyone kisses, and Scorpius’s father rolls his eyes at everything Scorpius says, but he always listens. Today at breakfast Scorpius talked about frogs having sex on spaceships for half an hour and his father interrupted him only once to ask me to pass him the salt, please.

I know that by now we’ve seen Scorpius try and stuff a jalapeno up his left nostril, attempt to juggle three Mandrake babies, and sing 'I Want it That Way' in the middle of history to beg Outstanding out of Binns but trust me when I say this, he’s even stranger than we thought. Today, he woke up in the middle of the night and crawled out of bed. I assumed he'd gone to the bathroom but he wasn’t coming back for the longest time and I heard multiple thuds coming from downstairs so I decided to investigate. I found him covered in flour, sliding on egg yolk spilled all over the floor, trying to catch his balance. I tried to help and we both ended up sprawled on the floor, which is when he explained that he was trying to bake a cake for his father. His favourite, he said, only I don’t remember the recipe. We spent the whole night baking, trying to get it right, and now we have six different cakes and one very angry adult stomping all over the place and threatening to start casting Unforgivables. I’ve washed my hair three times but I swear, I still smell egg.

We had a snowball fight, too, only, quite unexpectedly, it took place inside the house. Scorpius announced that we were all allowed to use only one hand throughout the game so I wouldn’t be disadvantaged, and then yelled ‘START!’. It soon turned out that snowball fights at Malfoy Manor are all about throwing the balls at paintings rather than at each other. If you hit the torso of whatever long-dead aristocrat you’ve set your sights on, you’re awarded eight points, if you get them in the face, it’s nineteen, and if you hit the background, it’s merely three points. You’re only allowed to hit each painting once. Somehow, in spite of allegedly being the game’s author, Scorpius’s father lost, and quite spectacularly, too. The one snowball he managed to send at a painting and not at the wall or one of the many sculptures lining the corridors of Malfoy Manor managed to bounce right back and hit him on the nose, and the man in the painting in question – one Quincy Malfoy, Scorpius’s grand-(grand-n-times-more-)grandfather – insisted that he be awarded nineteen points too, so, in the end, Scorpius’s father ended up placed fourth out of us three participants. Scorpius won and his father sent him a hateful look once we’d counted the points and insisted that Scorpius clean up the mess. Scorpius solemnly promised to do it after dinner, and I finally understood how he'd been sorted into Slytherin because naturally after dinner all the snow was long melted and there was nothing left to clean. 

(Scorpius’s father was not impressed but he decided to let it pass in the name of Christmas spirit, and then drank half a bottle of Blishen's Firewhisky and insisted that we play Twister.)

All in all, it’s a bit strange here, but not in a bad way. That potion they prescribed me at the hospital still tastes like toilet seat but my arm is halfway back to normal and Grandma even stopped by with a cake earlier today. Scorpius’s father was very polite and didn’t mention the six cakes we already had at home, and Grandma was very polite, too, and only yelled at me over daring to get myself out of spending Christmas at the Burrow for three minutes before she went quiet and smiled benevolently. She told Scorpius’s father that he looked like a television antenna (“And I know a thing or two about those after decades of putting up with Arthur’s obsessions”) and threatened that she’d be back with another cake and a jumper, too. Then Scorpius tumbled down the stairs wrapped in a towel, straight out of the shower and dripping water all over, and his knees looked so knobby that she corrected herself and promised to bring two cakes and two jumpers instead.

I hope you and Hugo are doing okay and that Aunt and Uncle aren’t arguing too much. As for the attached present, the shop assistant asked me to describe you in eight words and then said that 'The Magic Toyshop' would be perfect. I hope she was right.

With love,

Al

*

Dear Parkinson,

I need medical advice. I hit my head on one of the kitchen cupboards yesterday while trying to find this old mortar where father keeps four-leaf clovers (I needed a few to put them under Al’s pillow because he’s staying at ours for Christmas, yay!) and now I have an ugly bump on my forehead. I’m 83% sure that it was the cupboard that did it, but it would be very unwise not to at least consider the remaining 17%, and you’re a girl, so tell me, what are the chances that it’s actually an ectopic pregnancy? And do you think one of those weird pee tests will work on me? What about the mortgage? I’m too young to be a mother and to be honest, I don’t have the pelvis for it. It would have to be a C-section and you know I’m scared of knives.

I’d ask Al since he’s smart but I don’t want to stress him out, you understand. He’s not ready to be an uncle. He has too many issues. Don’t get me wrong, I like him just the way he is, but today he had a mental breakdown over brushing his teeth. There he was, brush, brush, brush, foaming at the mouth, when he rinsed his mouth a bit and told me that he shouldn’t be wasting our toothpaste and would we accept reimbursement in the form of two galleons? Then he kept brush brush brushing until what he was spitting out turned brownish-red, by which time I had to intervene and wrestle his toothbrush away. He apologized, said that he’d remembered how everyone thought he’d broken his arm on purpose even if they wouldn’t say it to his face, and he told me that he had a dream about the ethics of obliviate-ing the Unforgivables right out of people’s memory. Apparently, in the dream, he was put on trial and was meant to defend himself for claiming it was the right thing to do, only he was sure that he’d never claimed it in the first place because he thought that forgetting bad things led to their repetition so, as he put it, 'he had to argue his way out of his own beliefs.'

He’s kind of wonderful but I worry that he’ll go prematurely grey. Like, at the age of fifteen or something.

Because of all this, I was hesitant to breach the topic of our yearly Azkaban visit, but we couldn’t exactly leave for half a day unnoticed, me and father, so I cleared my throat three times to get Al’s attention while he was filling out a crossword in some dusty copy of The Prophet from 2012 and asked him if he wanted to tag along. It went something like this:

Scorpius Hyperion: Hey, so, do you want to go with us to The-Place-That-Must-Not-Be-Named?

Albus Severus: [perplexed, looking pretty dumb in spite of the almost finished crossword in his lap] Dante’s Inferno?

Scorpius Hyperon: [wriggling his fingers for dramatic purposes] To Aaazkaban!

Albus Severus: [quite suddenly] stalemate!

Scorpius Hyperion: [taken aback] …Is it?

Albus Severus: [hurriedly] no, no, in the crossword. Is it okay if I go? I don’t want to impose.

Scorpius Hyperion: [with the back of his hand pressed to his forehead] COUGH! Coughcoughcough COUGH!

Albus Severus: [after tilting his head to the side] whatever are you doing?

Scorpius Hyperion: [wheezing in a very convincing manner and grappling at his throat] COOOUGH!

Albus Severus: [confused but otherwise indifferent to the suffering of his brother in arms] Er?

Scorpius Hyperion: [disappointed] that was my allergic reaction to the word ‘impose.’ I could have DIED, you know.

Albus Severus: [arching his eyebrows] Well, you seem to have recovered.

Scorpius Hyperion: [trying to create a foreboding atmosphere] It’s the quiet before the storm.

Albus Severus: [with a fond smile that could be interpreted as exasperated but only by stupid people] I’ll go, then, if it’s really alright.

Scorpius Hyperion: [frustrated beyond belief but aware of his responsibility to impart wisdom] For your sake, I really hope I’m not pregnant after all.

Albus Severus: [tilting his neck even more, risking a cramp] You’re what now?

Scorpius Hyperion: [planning a dramatic exit] Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!

Anyway, all this proved unnecessary, since father announced that he could not and would not take The Saviour’s son to Azkaban, are you nuts, Scorpius, those people will Kedavra him with the sheer power of their will, don’t you think they won’t! So we both had to stay home, which was fine because although I do like visiting ‘the old pricks’ as father fondly calls them, I like staying home when he’s not here, too, because I’m opportunistic and know that it’s the only time I can get away with destroying the house through getting rid of all the evidence. 

Al was concerned about the technicalities of getting rid of all the evidence of having destroyed a whole building, which was disgustingly Ravenclaw of him. I told him that it wouldn’t matter once we ruled the world, evidence or not, and then he asked me if I genuinely wanted to rule the world, and it sounded very earnest and kind of Freud-ish, which is why I proceeded to explain that no, I did not experience bouts of penis-envy because I already had one, thank you very much. I offered to take off my pants as proof, too, but Al is a hypocrite and said no to that evidence, which only proved that he had never had any right to question my house-destruction ploys. Anyway, I told him that I didn’t really want to rule the world but wanted to do something BIG, which was when he asked if that was why I'd been sorted into Slytherin. I told him that no, that wasn’t why, and then proceeded to explain.

Now, you don’t know the story either, but I figure you should, since we’re spit-friends or something (though I still maintain that slashing our hands to draw blood and THEN shaking on it would have been much more romantic and poetic whereas spitting makes me think of isolated cowboys trying to wash sheep shit off their hands but whatever). Anyway, my conversation with The Sorting Hat of yore went something like this:

Little Scorpius, Already Handsome: Hello!

The Sorting Hat: Merlin, you already sound too snotty to be anything but a Malfoy

Little Scorpius, Already Handsome: [rightfully offended] Wow, way to be prejudiced, also, it smells in here.

The Sorting Hat: [all impatient, the asshole] Alright, shush, now, what do we have here, hmmm? Oh, I see, a bit more loyal than the usual Malfoy lot… A bit more adventurous, too… That could prove to be interesting…

Little Scorpius, Already Handsome: [ready to sacrifice himself for the greater good of his loved ones like Bella from 'Twilight' taught him to do] Look, let’s just ignore all my great qualities for a second, alright?

The Sorting Hat: [no doubt bitter about the suspicious white stain on its brim, Merlin, what have the teachers been doing to this hat? This couldn’t be healthy OR legal] That shouldn’t be too difficult.

Little Scorpius, Already Handsome: [chin raised regally] I want to make Slytherin great again.

The Sorting Hat: Alright, Donald Trump. Any other wishes? Is this going to be another Tom Riddle situation? Because they’re not paying me enough for this shit.

Little Scorpius, Already Handsome: Wow, you sure got all… emancipated. Anyway, no, that’s not what I mean by ‘great.’ I’m just tired of everyone saying that Slytherin is like Nazi Germany, alright? You know what father told me when he was taking me to King’s Cross? He said, “Scorpius, if you would, please consider not getting sorted into Slytherin. I know that it’s not what we’ve agreed on, but I think it would considerably increase the odds of you surviving school, and I just can’t afford to lose you in my current mental state, or, for that matter, ever. So do try to ask the old hat for some other house nicely, would you? I’ll even stomach Gryffindor as long as they don’t start calling you a little Death Shitter or something like that. So, no Slytherin, capisce?” Obviously, after a speech like that one I needed to be all noble and fix this. Put me in Slytherin, and I’ll make everyone like us in approximately 4.3 years, mark my words.

The Sorting Hat: [exasperated, even though, surely, it has nothing better to do apart from apparently granting sexual favours left and right— ohhh, it’s mayonnaise, now, huh? Right, sure, whatever you say, Your Hatesty] You sure talk a lot, huh.

Little Scorpius, Already Handsome: [producing a lighter out of his pocket] Put me in Slytherin or I’ll set you on fire, asshole. 

The Sorting Hat: [warily] You can't be serious.

Little Scorpius, Already Handsome: [gravely] I am, too.

The Sorting Hat: [humbly accepting its defeat] SLYTHERIN!

Little Scorpius, Already Handsome: [feeling generous and a little guilty, too] Look, in case it’s not mayonnaise, you can talk to me about it. I swear, I won’t judge. You said yourself that they’re not paying you enough—

The Sorting Hat: [the ungrateful wretch] OUT OF MY SIGHT. NOW.

So that’s the story. I hope it won’t put a strain on our friendship and that you won’t call me a blood traitor (which, again, you could really only call me a spit traitor if anything). I don’t know where I’d have ended up, had I not threatened the old hat, but in the end, I’m pretty happy where I am. I have you, and Zabini, and look, somehow, I have Al, too. I’m sorry for not telling you earlier but I worried you’d mind. Still, it felt weird, telling Al when even you didn’t know, since you’re the best friend and he’s, I don’t know, the uncle to my unborn child, I guess.

Anyway, with father out of the house, I could finally carry out my long-plotted scheme. Right away, I started cutting pillows open, which Al watched with wide eyes, gone pale like old mascarpone. He asked what I was doing and stuttered three times, too, even though it was a relatively short sentence (relatively is a word I learned from Al himself and desperately wanted to use to sound smart, so thank you for providing the opportunity just by existing!), and then told me to cut it out, to which I said that I already WAS, presenting the pillow feathers to him. During the three minutes I spent rolling around on the floor laughing at my own brilliant joke, Al managed to spell all the pillows back whole, so then I had to cut them open AGAIN. I spent the next two hours gluing the feathers to the cardboard wings I attached to one of our brooms and explained to Al that it was necessary for the broom’s healing process. I don’t know what traumatised the broom so, but she’d been refusing to fly for two years and I was determined to fix her eagle-style: you know, push her out of the nest and have her fly or fall to her death. Of course, I’d be there for her as a show of solidarity. Anyway, I climbed to the top of the house, straddled the broom, ignored Al’s agitated screams, patted the broom as encouragement, ignored Al’s even more agitated screams, and jumped.

For a moment, we hang suspended in the air, me and the broom.

Then we fell.

Now, we did crash into Al, but we managed not to rebreak his arm, and after a careful inspection, I am confident that all his ribs are intact, too, which is more than I can say for the broom. Really, she’s lucky she doesn’t have ribs in the first place, because o h b o y.

Anyway, I tried bandaging her back together since she broke in two places, but all my attempts proved futile, and so I threw her a funeral and buried her behind the house while Al trotted around gathering feathers, intent on fixing the pillows.

When father got back, I told him it’d been a wild mongoose that did it, on the run from government officials. He was not impressed. We ate Mrs. Weasley’s cake and when Al said ‘Merry Christmas,’ he looked like he meant it.

Best,

Scorpius

*

Dear Potter,

For Merlin’s Sake, why does your kid look so miserable all the time? What have you done to him? His arm’s almost healed by now and still he looks like you’ve been feeding him nothing but luewarm porridge and sadness all his life.

Sincerely,

Malfoy.

*

Dear Malfoy,

Nobody asked you.

Sincerely,

Potter.

*

Dear Potter,

I’m providing my opinion anyway.

Sincerely,

Malfoy.

*

Dear Draco,

To be honest, I think I’m a terrible father, but I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong exactly. Want to get a pint together when I get back?

Sincerely,

Harry

*

Dear Dad,

Hi. How are you? Is skiing as fun as uncle Charlie promised? ~~I hope you don’t break anything~~ I hope you’re having a good time and drinking lots of hot chocolate. Thank you for ‘Les Miserables.’ It’s a perfect gift, since, at 1463 pages, it should last me till New Year’s. Actually, it should last me even longer since Scorpius is very time-absorbing. In a ~~mostly~~ good way.

~~With love,~~

Al

*

Dear Agnes,

I’m sorry if this letter seems out of the blue, you don’t have to reply or even read it, but I thought it would be nice to write and wish you Merry Christmas. Alright, actually, Scorpius half-bullied me into writing you since he’s here. Well, it’s really me being here that’s the news because I’m writing to you from Malfoy Manor. Remember how I slipped after getting off the train? I think you were still at the station, waving bye. Anyway, long story short, I broke my arm and am spending Christmas at Scorpius’s because my family is at a ski resort being athletic and overzealous. I think you’d like it here because there are stacks of leather-bound philosophy books all over every room. Today, Mr. Malfoy tried making eggs for breakfast, and, somehow, we now have a leek stuck to the kitchen ceiling. Mr. Malfoy assures that the two are connected but refuses to explain how, and Scorpius told me in great secrecy that this was the reason why he’d sent me turnips for Christmas two years in a row, and I failed to understand that connection, too. It’s proper mental asylum here, and I find it kind of comforting, since I seem to fit in better than at my own house, which is a sort of mental asylum, too, but a much louder one.

(It’s not very loud here except for when the Malfoys catch each other’s eye and start singing cheesy Christmas songs like some weird Mariah Carey telepathy, because, miraculously, Mr. Malfoy loves those.)

Anyway, remember that time I found Scorpius trying to flirt the eagle knocker into letting him into our tower because he couldn't guess the riddle but desperately needed to tell me all about how he’d just read that mushrooms were not plants and that I was feeding you some alien life forms and that we had to make sure you didn’t need medical attention? I hope you do, and that you won’t get too mad about the next bit. See, Scorpius decided I must be in love with you when I told him I considered sending you a letter, and that’s why the envelope smells like roses (his mother’s perfume, left behind years ago ~~and he said he only uses it for special occasions since he’ll run out soon )~~. If he says something about it at school, just ignore him. ~~I mean, I’m not in love with you, even though you’re very lovable.~~

~~I hope you didn’t hate getting a letter from me because it felt sort of great, realizing that there were people I could write.  
~~

Merry Christmas,

Al

*

Dear Agnes,

Listen, I know that you’re a great gal and all, and I know that you helped me with perfecting those Transfiguration spells in October, and I know that you don’t judge mushrooms for not being plants in spite of the betrayal and injustice of it, but I still need to say this: if you break Al’s heart, I will make sure that they never serve chanterelles in Hogwarts ever again, and I will make sure that you suffer, and I will probably cry quite a bit Albeit in a very manly way.

(I capitalized the ‘Albeit’ because it’s a pun. I hope you laughed. I sure did.)

HURT HIM AND YOU’LL HURT YOURSELF IS WHAT I’M SAYING.

Again, nothing against you, but Al is my very important someone and I don’t want him to come crying to me in a week because you stomped all over his heart. He already has a broken arm, for Merlin’s sake.

That said, I hope you’ll be happy together, and have three and a half kids, and will sometimes recall me with fondness and send me a fruit basket or something.

(Seriously though, how did you do it? Did he fall for you because you’re quiet? Or smart? Or a girl? Or all of the above? I’m asking strictly for scientific research purposes.)

Merry Christmas,

Scorpius Hyperion

*

Dear Rose,

I’m sorry to hear about the cutlery-flinging fight. I hope uncle Ron will recover from those fondue fork wounds. At least now he and Dad will have matching scars, right?

Malfoy Manor keeps getting stranger and stranger. I actually got a gift from Scorpius’s father, and it’s the most beautiful edition of Andersen’s fairy tales. It’s the size of a tombstone and ~~I hope they couldn’t see that I teared up over it~~ speaking of tombstones, we went to a cemetery yesterday. Apparently, it’s one of the Malfoy Christmas traditions (which, besides the crazy snowball fights, include Christmas carols karaoke, beetle hunting which no one ever wins since there’s no beetles in winter, bat hunting which Scorpius’s father always wins because they’re attracted to the smell of his hair gel, and the infamous Azkaban visits).

Believe it or not, it was actually nice. Sure, some of the graves were of past Death Eaters but it’s not like they could harm me from six feet under, and we visited the graves of those that died fighting against Voldemort, too. What I liked about it the most is that both Malfoys wore the jumpers Grandma dropped off the other day even though they kept complaining that they were atrocious. What I liked almost as much was how many flowers there were all over and how wherever there were no flowers, Mr. Malfoy would put one from this huge bouquet of white roses that he got. As you know, I dislike the world quite a bit, and I know that you agree that it’s a rotten place, nevermind that we’re too young to go full Schopenhauer, but, just then, it seemed that Scorpius had a point with his whole ‘let’s change it for the better, then’ agenda.

Oh, and thank you so much for the quills! They're great! I'm writing this letter with one of them, actually.

Anyway, this might have been the best Christmas I’ve had in years. I’m only sad that yours wasn’t too good and wish you could have been here.

With love,

Al

*

Dear Agnes,

What do you mean, Albus doesn’t love you? Way to be ungrateful! And NO, I’m NOT jealous, shut UP.

Kindest Regards,

Scorpius Hyperion.

P.S. The dot is on purpose!

P.P.S. .!

*

Dear Little Fuckwit,

It's kind of weird without you. How's the arm?

James

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading <333 Comments are, as always, very appreciated! 
> 
> Also, I'm on tumblr if you want to say hi (@yoyointhegarden) and if you're bored, here's a link to my original story: **https://archiveofourown.org/works/23463895/chapters/56249917** It's about kids at a boarding school that get involved in art theft and was actually initially supposed to be some Hogwarts story with original characters and is at times pretty similar in tone to this


	5. oh, and see how I fall, December 2020

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title is from Kate Bush's 'December Will be Magic Again.' I know that this took me a while but....... uni essays. Also, it's longish. 
> 
> Oh and this is now December 2020 so like.... I'm ignoring all 'Muggle' politics and the pandemic too. I thought that would be the most... sensible? Idk. Anyway, enjoy <3

Dear Al,

Alright LISTEN, I thought of something brilliant. You’ll love it. Well, maybe not. In fact, you might hate it but here goes: We should rob grandfather.

Shshsh, hear me out. You know how grandmother had to sell all those paintings and cake forks and whatnot to pay war reparations? Well, explain this: all her dresses sold to boutiques cheap and father’s broom, too, but somehow grandfather still has a shitload of money, how’s that? And what does he need it for anyway? Sure, there’s the hairdressers and all that but the rest of it? He throws galleons at charities around Christmas so they’ll put his photo in the Prophet, hurray, and then he goes around wearing cufflinks that cost more than the whole Malfoy estate. And he went and bought himself a mansion, too! You know, after the war, ‘the memories were just too much’ and so was grandmother, apparently, so he went and bought a house twice as big as Malfoy Manor with his secret evil money stash while father and grandmother were selling their underwear and eating dinners with the memory of Voldemort at the table all like WOO I’M A SSSCARY, SSSCARY BOY, NO NOSSSE, WHERE ISSS HARRY, PASSS ME THE SSSALT DRACO DEAR and he only let grandmother join him after months of pricy renovations she had no say in. Father gives money to charities all the time, too, you know, only he does it anonymously. He says that he’s finally free to do things for their own sake rather than as a part of some Pureblood high society breeding ritual slash power play thingy and so everyone thinks grandfather is all reformed and father is a selfish recluse, even though it’s father who has a proper job (even if it is just a stupid advice column) and one he had to fight tooth and nail to get, too. He has no idea I know but I found his diary once and it was all “people at work putting pubic hair in my sandwiches again and there’s owl poop all over the window, also rain.”

Anyway, I’m not saying grandfather is proper evil (he might be) but I am saying that he’s rich, and rich people are just so passé, aren’t they? Anyway I figure we should rob him and then distribute the money to the poor all Robin-Hood-like or kind of like Grinch after his change of heart only less green. I do wonder why he was green in the first place. Do you think he could do photosynthesis? So we rob grandfather, give the money to the people, including father because I need new shoes, a new broom, and also more hair conditioner, and then BOOM, everyone happy! Well, apart from grandfather but he’ll manage. He can always sell his silver collection. Two hundred and twenty-six teaspoons dating whole inbred generations back, and there are people actually hunting for that stuff in the advert column in the Prophet and on, like, eBay. Once I even saw someone offer the heads of three dead goats and a cottage in Cornwall in exchange for any information regarding the location of a saucer that my grand-grand-grand-auntie used to drink sage infusion from. I almost wished we had it somewhere in the house because I so wanted to request the heads of three LIVE goats instead.

ANYWAY, ALL I’M SAYING IS I HATE PUREBLOODS AND I HATE SNOBS AND I HATE OUR ‘SNOT-COLOURED’ CURTAINS AND, TO BE HONEST, SOMETIMES I RATHER HATE GRANDFATHER TOO.

Huh. That was surprisingly cathartic.

Anyway, good thing you’re going to that resort because we might need ski masks for this. All good robbers wear those. Not sure where we’ll get guns though. I think you need a visa to travel to the US, so that’s out. I suppose we could do without them, what with us having wands, but a) the element of surprise and b) that gangster look!

Hey, by the way, how’s Rose? And what about Hugo? Are they alright?

Father says hi and says to tell your dad hi also. He is saying ‘Scorpius, make sure Al tells that old prick Potter I said hi, we have to keep up appearances, you understand.’

Appearances, he says, after the curtains incident. And we’re having Christmas dinner at grandfather’s this year, too! I fully intend to use that time to draw a floor plan of the house, establish the location of a secret safe that grandfather no doubt keeps there, and stuff myself full of those small fancy canapés grandmother makes.

I can’t believe we’re not spending Christmas together this year.

(You know, grandfather still has house-elves AND he has that fancy hairbrush, special edition, ‘Pureblood coiffure effect guaranteed’, made of something expensive like the hair from a unicorn’s buttcrack or something. We should steal that too. I’m sure it’ll sell on the black market).

Listen, you have to acquire the masks, write me back right away, and tell me ALL about the resort, alright?

Oh, and did you end up getting the pumpkin juice stains out?

Best,

Cunningly Frustrated, Scorpius

*

Dear Cunningly Frustrated,

Hold your horses, Robin Hood. (I only wrote this because I’ve always wanted to say ‘hold your horses’ but it sounds daft in verbal conversation, doesn’t it?) Why should we rob your grandfather? I get that he’s capitalism dressed in silk itself but he’s still your family, no? Whatever happened? Curtains? What curtains?

Rose and Hugo are better than I expected. I guess it’s because we could all see the divorce coming for a while. Rose said ‘high time’ when they f finalized it Friday, and Hugo only worried about them being lonely on Christmas but they won’t be, not really. Aunt Hermione’s at Uncle Bill’s now and later she’ll go to Aunt Luna’s place, and Uncle Ron is with Uncle Charlie so it’s all good. I think Rose and Hugo really appreciate the whole ‘we’re not separating you two for Christmas, no way’ thing and we’ve been planning for them to go with us for weeks now so they’re doing alright. It sucks that they finalized it right before the holidays but, at this point, it was only a matter of a signature anyway.

Today Rose is, in fact, in a very good mood, since apparently she’s a natural at skiing and keeps rubbing it in my face like I care. The only thing I do care about is that someone, once upon a time, was stupid enough to stand atop a snowy hill, attach two sticks to their legs, and decide that it would be fun to try and kill themselves, sorry, that is, slide down. I mean, it’s just unnatural! Dad suggested that I try snowboard, but that’s even worse because you technically still have two legs but it’s like you only have one instead. As of now, my favourite part by far is the ski lift and you know how I feel about heights. Dad says that it’s Wales and therefore doesn’t have real heights, as if he’s actually been to the Alps or something. For a Quidditch junkie like him nothing is high enough to justify being scared for your life. He’d probably go see Burj Khalifa just to release a Snitch on top of it and chase it around the top, and so would James.

Speaking of James, he hasn’t been tormenting me too much because Teddy is here with us. Teddy’s presence means that James is both trying to be nice (since Teddy goes tomato-red in the face when someone is rude and always tries to lighten the mood by telling terrible Voldemort knock-knock jokes like: ‘Knock, knock.’, ‘Who’s there?’, ‘Nose.’, ‘Nose who?’, ‘Nose and all of Voldemort’s Death-Eater hoes.’) and ignoring others in general in favour of spending time with him. It’s a curious phenomenon, that, Teddy all polite and awkward in all his Hufflepuff glory and three inches too long sleeves trailing to his knuckles and James following him around like he’s the greatest thing since slice bread just because his hair is blue. This year, Teddy is all the more absorbing since James has to ‘heal his broken heart’ or something. Apparently, Victoire dumped Teddy mid-December. Story goes, she told him she was too good for him, Teddy admitted that she really was, and that angered her so much that she punched him in the face. Ah, teenage romance. Well, not teenage. Teddy’s twenty-two already and apparently that’s what the fight was all about, how he’s a functioning adult (in theory) but still collects game cards and is perfectly happy delivering pizza.

Well, at least James still likes him.

All in all, it’s not that bad here even if I already almost died a total of six times. I keep drinking this weird herbal thing Gretchen gave me right before we left that’s supposed to be good for bruises and it keeps not being good for bruises at all but she promised it would work, eventually, and was pretty offended about me daring to doubt her in the first place. She told me, ‘Now, young man, just because I’m a Squib doesn’t mean I don’t know my way around the kitchen, in fact, it means I do because I can’t just flick a stick at the stove and hope it’ll do all the work for me! You should have come to me before, you know, with my potions, the pregnancy never would have happened.’ I almost told her that I had never been, and, in fact, couldn’t be pregnant, what with the lack of a uterus but in the end, I decided that the far bigger obstacle to me getting pregnant was how no one would ever sleep with me, and I didn’t want to sound whiny, so I just nodded along. There, not crossing anything out, no censorship. You’re getting it all, Scorpius, my unfiltered thoughts in all their glory.

Anyway, I think this is what Dad meant when he said I should get friends my age, but me and Gretchen actually get on really well when she’s not being an old hag. She complains about her arthritis, I complain about puberty and the meaninglessness of existence, and we argue about Proust.

Listen, I can indeed acquire ski masks, but I’m vetoing the robbery. I think we’re better off letting your grandfather’s silver be. Still, I might reconsider if I hear the whole story, because I can feel there is one. No pressure, though.

And yes, Mum patiently spelled the robes clean. Now I’m ‘free to attend next year’s ball, too’, hurray. Remind me why someone thought having it every year was a good idea? Nevermind me but Rose here says she hates the social expectation of having a new dress for each one. We’re lowkey considering boycotting it next year, no pumpkin juice incidents, no awkward Pride and Prejudice dances (with the stress on Prejudice), no sight of disgustingly happy couples feeding each other macarons.

Best,

Al

P.S. All this snow Scorpius. It makes me think of you.

P.P.S. Dad says to tell you to tell your dad that he can say all that to him himself, and that if my dad is an old prick and they’re the same age, then that makes your dad an old prick too.

*

Dear Al,

Do you really think the ball was bad for you? At least you got to go with Agnes and not that Parkinson heathen. She stepped all over my feet and I still have bruised toes. You should see them, all purple-blue-mageeenta!

And I like to think it’s a good thing no one would sleep with you since you’re, you know, fourteen, but I bet many a witch would kiss the hell out of you. Not that there’s any hell to be kissed out, really.

And please, PLEASE reconsider the robbery? See, there IS a story there.

Remember that time I wanted to hang out in the Forbidden Forest and you said ‘no’ but then I said ‘please’ and you said ‘NO’ only then I said ‘pretty please’ and you said ‘it is quite pretty but NO’ except then I said ‘I’m sad now’ and you said ‘no you’re n— oh, fine!’ And then we went to the forest and something with three and a half legs almost ate you and then after I saved you from its clutches you wiped its spit off on my robe? And then we went back to school and your brother saw all the spit and called us disgusting womb-eaters (whatever that means, yuck)?

What happened on Thursday was sort of like that. Well, not really, but it did make me feel like I was covered in someone’s spit for noble reasons and being criticized for it. 

Anyway, what happened is this: aunt Daphne decided to pay us a visit. She does that sometimes, stops by to pretend to be polite and interested in our well-being, rubbing the divorce in father’s face, telling him all about how Mother is doing so much better without us, dating a handsome Italian, spending summer in Sicily, blah blah blah whatever. She came, and father offered to take her coat, which of course started a three-minutes long rant about how we should have house-elves for that, what a terrible age we live in, does father cook himself, too? Which YES, he DOES, why don’t you FUCK OFF? As I was deliberating putting bat droppings in her tea, aunt Daphne explored the house, even though she’d seen it a hundred times already, those high heels clicking like a very rhythmical and foreboding sonata, all DRACO WHY BUT THE WINDOWS, SO FILTHY, HOWEVER CAN YOU LIVE LIKE THIS? IS IT SO THAT THE NEIGHBOURS WON’T SEE WHAT IT IS YOU GET UP TO IN THE EVENINGS? SURELY, YOU HAVE CURTAINS FOR THAT, OH, THERE THEY ARE, WHAT A HIDEOUS GREEN! NOT VERY SLYTHERIN, IS IT, RATHER LIKE SNOT, I MUST SAY, AND OH, BUT YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE NEIGHBOURS, DO YOU?

And father following her around, nodding along, all ‘whatever you say Daphne, how’s Astoria again? Oh really? Well, good for her, hope she gets a tan. You could use some yourself, you’re looking a bit pale there. Tea? Yes, I will make it myself, which is why you can trust there won’t be any suspicious substances in it. No, just saying. Why, I would never.’

AND THAT CHILD OF YOURS DRACO, she said at some point, too, even though, you know, I’m her nephew and also have a freaking name and also was standing right there! I’VE HEARD ALL ABOUT IT, KEEPING BAD COMPANY AT SCHOOL, IS HE, RUNNING AROUND WITH THAT POTTER BOY. YOU SHOULD PUT A STOP TO IT, DRACO, REALLY. SUPPOSE THE CHILD’S CONTAGIOUS?

Father all, no, we’ve checked, the Potter boy is not catching. Scorpius here is still blond and stupid, no Pottery rubbing off on him anytime soon, I assure you.

DRACO BUT THE STATE OF THE FURNITURE! AND WHERE’S ALL YOUR LOVELY CHINA?

I was so very tempted to say that the only China she’d see would be the vast country I would spread her remains in after Kedevra-ing her, Al. So very tempted.

A DISGRACE TO ALL THE PUREBLOODS, THIS FURNACE HERE.

At that point I went looking for those bat droppings.

Anyway, skiing sounds fun. I miss you. Today we had a snowball fight, and I missed you so bad that father won, and he only managed to hit one painting, and by accident, too. He was aiming for one on the opposite end of the hall. I think that he might have been a very interesting baseball player in his past life. You know, that funny Muggle game, kind of like Quidditch but not? Anyway, that would mean that he must have been a Muggle in his past life, and honestly? He totally has that energy. I mean, if he didn’t know magic, he couldn’t spell dishes back together after breaking them in anger, and I just think that it would add some gravity to his melodrama. Who knows, maybe people would even take him seriously sometimes, then?

Best,

Scorpius

P.S. Snow makes me think of you, too.

P.P.S. Father said that your father can ‘fuck right off, stupid golden boy saviour wonder toothpaste-sniffer of a man’

*

Dear Scorpius,

So you actually get properly angry sometimes, huh? Who would have thought.

I’m sorry that you have to put up with all that. I’m sorry that your dad has to put up with all that. I’m just, sorry. You know, you don’t have to pity-friend me anymore. I mean, I don’t want you to have to listen to awful stuff like that just because you’re nice to me. I’d understand, I swear.

Best,

Al

P.S. Dad says to tell yours that he can see his hairline receding all the way from Wales, like a very cowardly army.

*

Dear IDIOT,

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, AL? Are you for real??? First of all, I can’t believe you used ‘friend’ as a verb! And to think you had the nerve to gift me an actual dictionary all those years ago! Second of all, when exactly did I give you the impression that I was spending time with you out of pity? You think I was angry at aunt Daphne? You think THAT was anger? Ha, think again. I’m only properly angry now.

You’ve got it all wrong, Al. I don’t know how you got the impression that I’m Mr. Popularity and could be hanging out with someone else, that I would ever WANT TO, and I’m sorry if I made you think that because of my behaviour but honestly? I can’t see how I could have, and it kind of breaks my heart. I mean, are you overreacting, or am I actually an asshole?

I don’t know what’s worse Al, me being terrible and not knowing, or you being loved and not knowing either.

Best,

Scorpius

P.S. Father says to tell yours that he can smell his bullshit all the way in England.

*

Dear Scorpius,

You’re not terrible at all. I’m overreacting, I swear. I’m so sorry, I just ~~Well you’ve been kind of wonderful, the best thing an idiot like me could hope for, far better than that, even, only sometimes it scares me so much when I’m allowed to have good things, and I imagine this nasty bearded guy – God, I guess, and look at me fearing the guy I claim not to believe in – rubbing his hands together, letting me have them but biding his time, so very eager to take it all away when I least expect it. So when something amazing like you happens to me, it’s easier to believe it’s a trick, I guess, or even try to sabotage it on my own terms before the bearded guy, the world, fate, the whatever will. And sure, you might not be Mr. Popularity, but have you seen yourself? You’re kind of like turtles you know, thousands of eggs and only a handful of the small ones making it to adulthood. A walking (well, swimming in their case) miracle and I know that you’ll change the world even though you once stuffed thirty of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans in your mouth, and I guess what I’m trying to say is that I know that you like me, I do, but I just can’t for the life of me tell WHY.~~

Okay, no, you know what, you deserve better than that.

Again, you’ve been kind of wonderful, the best thing an idiot like me could hope for, far better than that, even, only sometimes it scares me so much when I’m allowed to have good things, and I imagine this nasty bearded guy – God, I guess, and look at me fearing the guy I claim not to believe in – rubbing his hands together, letting me have them but biding his time, so very eager to take it all away when I least expect it. So when something amazing like you happens to me, it’s easier to believe it’s a trick, I guess, or even try to sabotage it on my own terms before the bearded guy, the world, fate, the whatever will. And sure, you might not be Mr. Popularity, but have you seen yourself? You’re kind of like turtles you know, thousands of eggs and only a handful of the small ones making it to adulthood. A walking (well, swimming in their case) miracle and I know that you’ll change the world even though you once stuffed thirty of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans in your mouth, and I guess what I’m trying to say is that I know that you like me, I do, but I just can’t for the life of me tell WHY.

Please, don’t ever think you’re awful, only think I’m an idiot. Because I am.

Best,

One Very Very Sorry Al

P.S. Dad says to tell yours ‘no wonder, with your nose held so high up.’

*

Dear Al,

You ARE an idiot but I forgive you. I just wish you didn’t think all that. I mean, you’re pretty wonderful yourself, and I know that you just want to sit wrapped in a blanket all day and read books, but I think you could change the world, too. You ARE changing mine, already, all for the better, and just by existing, too! And I know that next you’ll tell me that it doesn’t matter, that you’re not DOING anything, that nihilism blah blah blah but remember when it got unexpectedly cold in October and you spent half the night helping professor Longbottom wrap all his sensitive plants with wool and foil? I know that you said you couldn’t bring yourself to care if they died or not but here’s the thing, Al: You didn’t care, but went to all that trouble anyway. That sounds a lot like caring to me, you know? If someone wants plants to survive and makes sure they do, that’s great. If someone wants them to survive and doesn’t move a finger to ensure they do, it’s meaningless. If someone couldn’t care less about some ‘stupid bushes with thorns all over, Merlin, look at my HANDS Scor’ but works to keep them warm anyway? That’s you, through and through. All that talk about how you hate the world, and how Earth would be better off if we all died, and how why care when the damage’s already done, we’re on a path to self-destruction as a race and there’s no stopping that, but there you are, writing petitions to the Ministry and collecting beer bottles from the edge of The Forbidden Forest even though you’re scared of it. I don’t even care if you complain about me to a hundred people behind my back, Al, because you’ll still have a panic attack if I get so much as a papercut and will still bring me five band-aids, a bandage, and a stretcher, too.

I can’t stress this enough: I’m so happy that I pretended to hate you all those years ago and sent you that stupid turnip. Still, nostalgia aside, I have a more long-term present for you this year. I have to warn you, the book that you’ve probably unpacked by now is not the sort of acclaimed literature you usually read, not five hundred pages long, no big words, no critique of the system hidden between the lines. If you hit someone with it, they won’t drop dead. Still, I thought you might like it. It’s all about awful siblings (one is even literally called Awful, ha) who love each other anyway, and about deciding to be the best version of yourself, and also about the treachery of pipes. It’s very funny and it made me cry near the end so that I had to cut three onions in half when I heard father approaching to explain the tears. It’s his own tactic – he does it whenever he tears up about his childhood traumas and stands there sobbing, knife in hand, complaining about vegetables and expecting me to play along. It’s only fair for me to defeat him with his own weapon, wouldn’t you say?

Also, remember how you danced with Laney Finch-Fletchley at the ball? I never got the chance to ask, was it alright in the end? I mean, was it nice? ~~Do you like her now?~~

Merry Christmas,

Scorpius

P.S. Father has acquired a football, bought a wig and fake glasses for it, carved a lightning bolt in the leather, and christened it Potter, then proceeded to fling stinging curses at it for half an hour. I don’t see how they can be calmly going out for a drink together every month if this is how they behave when they’re apart. I hope we’ll be wiser when we grow up. To be honest, I think we might already be wiser, even me, and last week I bought roller skates just to learn tap-dancing.

*

Dear Scorpius,

I don’t even know what to say. I keep telling you I can’t stand it when you say nice things, and you keep saying them anyway. I don’t mean it in an ungrateful way. I just can’t see how I deserve it but I guess I’ll try appreciating it rather than sabotage it. 

~~I just wish you knew what it does to me when you say things like that. It’s like I have some skittish animal trying to burrow deep in my stomach, and it’s scary and I don’t know what it means and I just don’t want you to realize that I’m fucked up after all and leave me and~~

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

I’ve read the book and you were right. It’s not acclaimed literature but maybe it should be. It made me realize that I might not hate James all that much* and it made me want to try and do better ~~and it made me cry~~ and it made me cry.

~~You make me cry, too, sometimes, and I just don’t get why~~

(*Because of the book and also because I found him in the bathroom in the middle of the night, sixteen years old and crying about how now that Teddy and Victoire are broken up, he will never legally be a part of our family no way.)

Anyway, me and Rose have been learning how to knit since Grandma isn’t getting any younger and we thought it’d be nice if someone made something for her instead of the other way around, and somehow, I’ve made you gloves, ha. I’m a proper grandmother myself now, all I need is a rocking chair, except any self-respecting grandmother would make a better job of it. One of the gloves has an extra finger, see. Still, I’m sure you’ll like them anyway (not because they’re nice, but because you’re you) and in the meantime, I’ll try to make you something more functional and not too Weasley-like. It won’t be Gucci, but I promise it’ll be warm.

Merry Christmas,

Al

P.S. Dad says ‘SHUT UP ALREADY, NOBODY LIKES YOU, YOU UGLY FERRET.’ 

*

Dear Grandmother,

I know that I could have breached the topic after the Christmas dinner yesterday but I thought it would be a tad ill-timed what with Father yelling at Grandfather that he should be in Azkaban and Grandfather yelling at Father that he should be in Azkaban for saying that and the foie gras ending up stuck to the ceiling.

(I do apologise about the foie gras but I never would have touched it had I known about that gavage thing. I myself wouldn’t like to be force-fed through a tube and then killed and served as an appetizer, and I suspect you wouldn’t either. I know that some traditions are hard to let go of but I distinctly remember Father force-feeding me spinach in the innocent days of my youth – not through a tube, mind you, but still – and I wouldn’t wish the experience on my worst enemy (systematic oppression as of late), much less an innocent aquatic bird.)

The reason why I am penning this letter and trying to make it sound a bit snobby to appeal to your refined tastes (I’m even capitalizing ‘Father’ and all that) is the following: I am face with a terrible conundrum and feel the need to consult someone who can approach the subject with the sensitivity and clear-mindedness of an objective observer. The matter in question revolves around one of my classmates and therefore cannot be discussed with any other classmate of mine or with anyone that has come into contact with said classmate besides.

(Basically, Father, Parkinson, and Zabini are out.)

The classmate I’m referring to here is one Albus Severus Potter. You might have heard of him. He is often mentioned in the newspapers and Grandfather mentions him frequently also, throwing forks at a picture of him hang on the wall in your drawing room. A plain boy, Al, never brushes his hair, wears ugly oversized clothes and has extremely long eyelashes. He is very intelligent but hardly ever flaunts it, and he colour-codes his books but does not, in any way, code his clothes, which is why the few ties he has sometimes end up in his underwear drawer and his mittens were once found on two of the Giant Squid’s eight arms (Albus naturally accepted that turn of events with great dignity and did not laugh at me too much when I suggested we give the girl three more pairs so she can be warm all over, only went and consulted some particularly brick-ish library books with leather covers overgrown with fur that later proved to be dust, and established that the squid could not have been too cold in the lake and told me not to worry). I am quite confident that if there ever is another war in the wizarding world, Al will deal with it by researching everything there is to know about political conflicts and then making a dramatic speech that will convince everyone to cut it out. He would never, of course, believe his own success and would go to bed to wrap himself in a blanket, write down a detailed will, and prepare for death. On top of all that, he is often in the state of perpetual weltschmerz and he has so many allergies that he’s always sneezing into his sleeve – not very hygienic that, I do realize, especially when he then proceeds to chew on said sleeve in nerves – but he is more than worth keeping.

More than, Grandmother.

In order for you to fully understand the gravity of my situation (the nature of which I will soon disclose here, worry not) I must first recount three incidents that took place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Somewhere, Scotland (not a very precise location, I realize, but then you have been there so I feel it safe to assume you don’t need to know the postcode, and who knows where that ~~bloody~~ school is actually located?), this year.

Incident #1

It was a Quidditch game I did not participate in because BROOOOOOMS!!! and Al did not participate in because BROO%^”$%$MS?! (Excuse the colloquial language but I saw it as the only adequate way of properly conveying our varying approaches to the sport). Apparently, I am ‘too enthusiastic’ to play Quidditch (I still fail to understand how trying to teach the Whomping Willow how to play tennis with the Quaffles was a ‘safety hazard’ since it’s pretty clear from the tree’s trunk that it could use the exercise) and Al’s relationship with brooms is the closest the poor boy will ever get to a hunting trip (with him being the prey), so technically we should both have been stuck in the stands, assaulted with other kids’ elbows, and yelling encouragements, but as it was, Al was not yelling anything encouraging because he ‘could not care less’ and was busy reading ‘Jane Eyre’ anyway, whereas I was not yelling encouragements because it was a Gryffindor/Slytherin game and I did not want to appear biased, considering I was the commentator. Yes, me, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, a true Quidditch commentator, since ‘that enthusiasm of yours might prove a little less fatal then, Mr. Malfoy.’

As a further effort not to appear biased, I kept yelling insults at Gryffindors and Slytherins BOTH, a brilliant tactic that was praised by the crowd with many a ‘BOOO!.’ A rather strange show of approval but I suppose you can only do so much applauding before your hands start hurting. Theirs got tired instantaneously, but alas! Anyway I was having the time of my life yelling at James Potter that his trousers were too tight and was he quite sure the seams would not give when suddenly I spotted Albus with that book spread on his knees. I kind of forgot the game there for a moment and just kept blabbing about the state of James’s trousers, which, upon reflection, was probably misread as some weird perverted fixation when in reality I just wanted him to be careful since I knew from Al that he had those boxer shorts with a Pygmy Puff pattern all over them that he always wore before games for luck and surely, he wouldn’t want that on display. Someone scored but I couldn’t tell who because there was a twig in Al’s hair and I imagined that soon someone would notice and disentangle it, only they wouldn’t be gentle enough, and who was he talking to anyway? I could not quite see because there were all those tall Ravenclaws all around (you’d think they’d be hunchbacked from doing nothing but reading books but no) but it was some girl – not Agnes the mushroom lover – and she was making him laugh, and she was making him forget the book which was starting to slide off his lap, and I kept craning my neck, and kept leaning over the railing, and when the book started falling and I yelled a desperate ‘Jane!’ in warning, somehow, I myself started falling too.

I would love to say that my whole life flashed before my eyes but, to be frank, I’m already fourteen and you can only fall for so long. All I had time to do was lock eyes with a very disoriented Al – those eyelashes – and think ‘bye’ before I smashed into the ground and died in a spectacular confetti of entrails like a very gory piñata.

Just joking.

Actually, James Potter caught me a few feet above the ground so all was well in the end, and I finally noticed the girl Al had been talking to, too. It was Laney Finch-Fletchley from Ravenclaw. She’s very pretty and very smart and very blond, even blonder than me. Blonder than me, you and Father put together, maybe. Still, when James caught me on that broom, Al wasn’t looking at her anymore.

Incident#2

We were studying in the library together once, me and Al, and I must have drifted off because at some point I woke up with my cheek smashed against an anthology of medieval Muggle literature open on a page with a printed copy of some picture of a man riding a giant snail (I, of course, approve of the new reform and the extra Muggle culture classes we have but I don’t think a whole year of writing essays will ever help me understand THAT). Al was still there even though it was already dark outside, chewing on the tip of his quill and reading something called ‘Solaris’ rather than study. I rubbed my eyes and reached for my by-then no doubt cold tea, only the mug was almost hot. I glanced at Al and his cheeks were red but he didn’t look up from the book so I figured he’d prefer me not to acknowledge the warming spells.

We had an essay due the next morning and I was already mentally preparing for pulling an all-nighter but my half-finished essay draft proved to be full-finished when I unfolded it, mistakes corrected, conclusion added, bibliography listed. I stared at it, and I wrapped my hands around that mug of still-hot tea, and I felt my heart break a little, Grandma. I tried very hard to keep it in but I felt tears gathering in my eyes and didn’t even know WHY. It was a nice thing Al had done, no point CRYING about it of all things, right?

It made me think of that one time Father bought a bag of overripe strawberries. Before we made it back home, the bag split and the fruits spilled all over the pavement, so soft that they all turned into jam at our feet. That’s what it felt like just then with Al, you know, only inside my chest.

Incident#3

Incident three was that stupid Christmas ball, all robes and hair gel and shoe polish and mistaking shoe polish for hair gel and mistaking hair gel for shoe polish. I took Ariel (you know, Ariel Parkinson? She was there at all my birthday parties back when I still insisted on having those and I am sure her grandfather and Grandfather tortured many a wizard together anyway) or rather she took me. A week before the event she came up to me and was all, I know that we are like siblings but, frankly, I can’t see anyone asking out a weirdo like you and we’re both gay anyway so we might as well. I asked her what gave her the impression I was gay, to which she said that nothing gave her the impression I was straight. To be honest, I was not too happy about her figuring out my sexuality before I could have a go at it myself and briefly considered breaking into the headmaster’s office, nicking the Sorting Hat, and asking it’s opinion on the matter, since I thought it’d be more informed. Still, I said yes, because frankly, I felt a little sorry for Ariel there. Parkinson doesn’t exactly have too much going on for her, you know. Her idea of making friends is threatening them with Unforgivables, she dissects frogs in her free time, and she once put laxatives in the whole year’s porridge so we wouldn’t have to take a History of Magic test that day, which most people still feel very conflicted about. And then there are all the rumours about her being a bastard child or whatever since she’s strawberry blond and both her parents have dark hair. They keep accusing each other of having had an affair even though I don’t’ see how Parkinson’s father’s hypothetical affair might have contributed to the hair colour of something that came out of her mother’s womb. Still, all those lawsuits!

Anyway, I agreed to go with her because I didn’t want to make her sad and Agnes, Al’s Ravenclaw friend, allegedly agreed to go with him for the very same reason. In the end, I didn’t even regret it all terribly even though Parkinson is a cruel foot-stepper, because it was quite the event, the Great Hall made to look like the inside of a snow globe, eight different kinds of cake, and a lot of dancing. We all kind of hang out together, me, Parkinson, Al, Agnes, and Rose, who actually came with the two of them. We’re battling social expectations here, is how she explained it. Apparently, they were advocating for polyamorous relationships. I asked her if they were advocating for incest, too, what with her and Al being cousins, and she got all offended like she thought I was making fun of her but it lasted all of three minutes. We all sat at the same table and Rose was a little gloomy for a while (you might have heard about her parents, I mean, EVERYONE has heard) and Parkinson tried to make her feel better by throwing pickles at her. No, I cannot explain why she thought it was a good strategy. Still, Parkinson is nothing if not persistent and when she got no reaction, she started constructing something from the pickles that bounced off of Rose and toothpicks, and soon it turned out to be a lion in the making. A stupid Gryffindor, just like you, Weasley, she told Rose, and even gave it whiskers. That, wonder or wonders, somehow got Rose to smile.

Anyway, we were all having fun, Rose, Al and Parkinson discussing modern-day politics and Agnes and me collecting empty plates off other tables and trying to draw Voldemort’s face on them with ketchup (it’s harder than you’d think, you lose your focus once and suddenly there’s a nose, just like that, smack-bang in the middle), occasionally sneaking off to dance to something catchy. The moment when it all started going to hell was when Laney Finch-Fletchley came up to our table with this sweet smile on her powdered face, hands behind her back and a dress like a cupcake with too much frosting, and asked Al to dance with her.

(You know, I’m not quite sure why, but when she did, Parkinson instantly looked to me for a reaction rather than at Al.)

We all stared at her for a while in complete silence. She kept smiling. We kept staring. She kept smiling. Al cleared his throat.

If you would just give me a moment, he said, all strangled, and dragged me away by the sleeve so suddenly that the chair I’d been sitting in tumbled to the floor. He stopped only when we rounded a pillar and stared at me wide-eyed. Our subsequent exchange went something like this:

Al, Sweating Profusely: [tugging on his tie] That was a girl there.

Scorpius, Handsome Even With Shoe Polish in Hair: [nodding slowly] Sure was.

Al, Sweating Profusely: [on his way to strangling himself with his own tie] Asking me to dance with her.

Scorpius, Handsome Even With Shoe Polish in Hair: [with godly patience] Seems so, yes.

Al, Sweating Profusely: [perplexed] WHY?

Scorpius, Handsome Even With Shoe Polish in Hair: [with a shrug] Puberty?

Al, Sweating Profusely: [tugging at his hair now] Have you seen me, though?

Scorpius, Handsome Even With Shoe Polish in Hair: [recognizing that assuring Al that he looks perfectly fine – which he does, more than – won’t do] Make she’s after your money.

Al, Sweating Profusely: [incredulous and high-pitched] What money?! The three galleons I haven’t spent on second-hand Ishiguro novels yet?!

Scorpius, Handsome Even With Shoe Polish in Hair: Could be. Anyway, you should hurry up and you know, agree to dance with her.

Al, Sweating Profusely: [staring at the clump of hair in his hand that he tore out of his scalp in frustration] Do I want to agree though?

Scorpius, Handsome Even With Shoe Polish in Hair: [wondering if he ate something past its due date, an uncomfortable weight settling somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach] Don’t you?

Al, Sweating Profusely: [even more high-pitched, soon to be heard only by dolphins and dogs] How should I know?!

Scorpius, Handsome Even With Shoe Polish in Hair: [with inexplicable and growing dread] Well, what do you think about girls?

Al, Sweating Profusely: They… exist.

Scorpius, Handsome Even With Shoe Polish in Hair: [deciding to steer this ship before it kisses an iceberg] Look, what have you got to lose?

~~[SO MUCH, SO MUCH, GRANDMA WHAT DO I~~

Al, Sweating Profusely: Alright, then. Alright. Sure. Yeah. ALRIGHT. Can you teach me how to waltz in half a minute?

Scorpius, Handsome Even With Shoe Polish in Hair: [with great regret] I don’t think even Chuck Norris himself could manage that, Al. Go on, now.

Al, Sweating Profusely: Yes, right, thanks. I— Merlin. Alright.

Scorpius, Handsome Even With Shoe Polish in Hair: [adjusts Al’s tie, reaches out to pat his hair flat, decides against it, lets his arms drop] Don’t worry about it too much. She’ll teach you, Laney. She’ll have more than half a minute, too.

And then he went, Grandma. He went, and I watched, and I realized something. We’re fourteen and it’s only just starting, isn’t it? Soon, everything will be girls and spin the bottle and dating and I will have to adjust Al’s tie like that many times more and then watch him go and take somebody’s hand in his. Such a stupid thing, skin, skin, palm, palm, too many fingers.

He said I had frog fingers once, whatever that means. It was the only time he held MY hand, to examine them. He tugged at them and at the webbing between them, curious like some scientist presented with a previously undiscovered species and I kept staring at my hand, thinking, please, don’t become boring, please, have an extra knuckle somewhere, please, keep him from letting you go.

I guess I know why, now.

They danced through three songs together, him and Laney. Someone spilled pumpkin juice all over Al’s robes, and I’m afraid that was the only reason why they ever stopped.

Those strawberries on the pavement, Grandma. I know I’m just dramatic and have listened to too many angry love songs but I swear, watching him stumble along with Laney Finch-Fletchley – who’s nice, and sweet, and kind, and who certainly deserves good things – felt like having someone step all over that mess of strawberries. 

So I guess I’m writing this letter to ask you if you think I love him but I don’t know if there’s any point in me sending it since, really, I already know.

Sincerely,

Scorpius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the Romione divorce. (Not really). 
> 
> As for the books, the one Scorpius sends Albus as a present is Diana Wynne Jones's "Archer's Goon" and it's delightful, I really recommend it! "Solaris" is Polish philosophical sci-fi weirdness and I'm obsessed with it but like... No. 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading and please consider leaving a comment if you feel like it <3


	6. Waiting for you to expect something more, December 2021

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, a few important (?) things about this chapter: remember how Draco has an advice column in a newspaper he works for? Well.... I called it WoeWizard, sort of like the magical equivalent of agony aunt. Yes, it is relevant. Also, I am sorry in advance but there are many discussions of vibrators in this chapter. I don't know how it happened. I think I have an evil twin who takes over this story as soon as I go get myself a tea refill. And I lent Rose Scorpius's scripted narration. At first I thought I'd keep it strictly his thing but you know what, Rose is also very dramatic and probably likes her own interpretation of events more than said events. She's the moon to Scorpius's sun, if that makes sense, and if they ever team up to write a play the world will end and Shakespeare will not only roll in his grave but get up from it too, to make them stop. 
> 
> This chapter doesn't actually have that many Albus & Scorpius letters??? But it's still all about them, I promise 
> 
> By the way, I know this took me long but my writing process for this is basically: waits for a day when it's okay to do nothing but right this non-stop from morning till evening. Otherwise, i can't get into the flow. Good (I hope???) news is the next two chapters, especially chapter 7, are going to be very very long. In my defense, I didn't plan this! This was meant to be a short story!
> 
> Oh and the title of this chapter is from Sufjan Stevens' "The Child With The Star On His Head."

Dear WoeWizard,

We definitely don’t know each other, so don’t even try to guess my identity, which is secret and has nothing to do with you, DNA or not. Me mentioning DNA is just a coincidence. COINCIDENCE. Coin-ci-dence. Like “oh, I DO have coins with me, see? I’m so dense!” after trying to cheat your way out of paying the bus fare and after the driver has threatened to call the authorities.

Anyway I am writing to you because for centuries now, I’ve been in love with my best friend. No, I’m not actually centuries-old, don’t be stupid. That was an exaggeration, purely for stylistic purposes. Sort of like your hairstyle. Which I wouldn’t know anything about because I don’t know your identity just like you don’t know mine. C O I N C I D E N C E. Anyway, it’s actually been years. Probably. I’ve only known for about a year but I’ve felt for so much longer. Probably. Do you think things like this are inevitable? I mean, two years ago I never would have guessed I’d be spending my days daydreaming about lovingly untangling pencil stubs out of my bff’s hair as he drools on my shoulder, fast asleep, or about eloping with him (though I shouldn’t probably tell YOU that) (COINCIDENCE!) and adopting a baby platypus together. Also other, less platonic things but I feel weird telling you about it since we definitely DON’T know each other, and so I won’t.

(Kissing. I mean kissing.)

To be honest, I doubt he likes me back. I mean, I can’t imagine him properly liking ANYone. Last year I was really anxious about it, him getting seduced by some girl with hair more golden than mine and hips more shapely than mine (Which! Unfair! Girls have a head start on that! I didn’t ask to look like a stick! I blame you, definite stranger!) but I have since realized that where normal teenagers get all flushed and excited over other teenagers’ revealing necklines, this friend of mine – let’s call him Albert, shall we? – only gets flushed and excited over things like lost book manuscripts and how ‘Shirley Jackson is a queen’ (which, I must have missed something because last I checked, that was still Elizabeth) and how we should fight to reduce light pollution because it ~~fucks~~ messes with birds’ internal clock or something like that. I’m not sure if it’s an excitement of sexual nature, and I sincerely hope not, but those are the things that get him animated even though his older brother has taken to sneaking porn magazines into his belongings every chance he gets (inside his underwear drawer, waiting in the shower when he draws back the curtain, stuck inside him Charms textbook). That only gets him to sigh tiredly and complain about having to treat his eyeballs with one of those Muggle disinfectants that make one’s hands all rough and itchy, which, by the way, he’s not into either. I should know, because once I got detention for trying to involve all the Hogwarts paintings in a gambling ring (which someone does every week, so if you think it betrays my identity, no luck!) and had to clean all the Hogwarts toilets for a week after (which also happens to everyone so you still don’t know who I am). Whenever I’d try to touch Albert after, he’d be like ‘Ew, go away, you have crocodile hands now’ but get this: after a month of applying every hand cream known to man and half the hand creams known to Gilderoy Lockhart (34% of those personally recommended by him, too), he’d say ‘Ew, go away, you have fish hands.’ After that, I decided I wouldn’t touch him anymore (by the way, by touching I mean friendly stuff not some perverted attempts at molestation) and THEN he came crawling, settling in my lap like a cat, sighing contentedly when I started playing with his hair and threatening to kill everyone I loved as soon as I stopped. He literally said, “I swear to Merlin, if you stop doing what you’re doing, I will take the first knife I can find and slaughter everyone you’ve ever loved,” all sleepy. Which, jokes’ on him because I happen to love him, so.

ANYWAY, I doubt Albert likes me back since I’m neither an encyclopaedia nor a fundraiser for environmental causes, and I think I’m on my way to making peace with that (it should take me roughly thirty-three years to get there, with a two-year leeway) but here’s the thing: if there’s even 00000000000000000000000000000000.3 % chance that he does like me too, I’m not going to waste it, so my question is: how do I check if he likes me without betraying my own feelings? And please don’t suggest pulling a Mr. Rochester and disguising myself as a fortune teller to trick him into telling me about his crush. First of all, Albert’s well-read, and would definitely recognize the tactic (why, his copy of Jane Eyre has so many post-its stuck inside that it has evolved from the size of a brick to the size of an actual brickhouse), and second of all, that would be creepy. I don’t want to trick him. I just want to love him.

Also, Albert doesn’t believe in fortune anyway, especially not in the good sort.

Faithfully,

UnknownUnknowableWonderfulAnonymous

*

Dear UnknownUnknowableWonderfulAnonymous,

That certainly is a right conundrum that you’re dealing with but have you perhaps considered this:

You could just ask him.

It’s often the simplest solution that works best (which, ~~fuck~~ Merlin knows I’ve never applied it in my own life but still) and I assume that asking your ‘bff’, as you put it, if he has any crushes would not be anything unseemly. Of course, if this Albert of yours does like you, he will most likely lie about it, but there’s still a lot you can learn from his reaction. If you confront him in person, things like stuttering, blushing, and deflection should be quite telling.

Or you can always try to bribe his friends to tell you. They would know, wouldn’t they?

(Provided he has friends, ha.)

If you do end up asking him, make it a sandwich. You know, like putting lettuce or pickles in between all the less healthy ingredients that are actually tasty so that you forget the greens are even there. First talk about the weather, then about some dating reality show you saw on tv, then inquire about his love life, then start talking Quidditch statistics.

Anyway, what I would suggest is talking this over with a family member. I know that it’s a delicate issue and a subject we don’t usually go to our parents with, but what we often don’t realize is that, unless our parents are (former) Death Eaters, they will probably gladly help and advise.

Just a suggestion.

Good luck,

WoeWizard

*

Dear Sir Editor,

If you expect me to deal with letters from my idiot son, you better give me a pay raise. I’m too fucking old for this.

Kindest Regards,

Draco Malfoy

*

Dear Al,

Are we still doing Hogsmeade?

With the warmest of sentiments,

Scorpius

P.S. IT’S SO FREAKING COLD? HOLY SHIT AND MERLIN IN HEAVEN!

*

Dear Scorpius,

Yes, Rose says six. pm. Not that it could actually be six am since everything’s closed at that time. Remember how I’m not allowed to censor myself anymore? That means that you have to ignore half the things I say, like now. I hope you’re aware.

See you soon,

Al

P.S. I KNOW. Though I’m not sure about Merlin and Heaven.

*

Dear Ariel,

First of all, I can’t believe you didn’t come. I know, I know, the flu, BUT wrapping the present I got you and sending it by post was mighty difficult, considering it’s a GLASS SCULPTURE OF A HEDGEHOG. I had to secure EVERY INDIVIDUAL SPIKE with bubblewrap, Ariel. EACH AND EVERY ONE. Which I suppose you already know or soon will. (Forgive me for starting a sentence with ‘which’ but I figure we’re informal enough that I can cut the nonsense and imitate chaotic speech patterns.) See, I’m a genius for getting you that sculpture, just like you’re a genius for being able to produce a Patronus at our age in the first place, even if it’s the tiniest, cutest, and sleepiest hedgehog to grace the Earth.

Anyway, apart from missing out on getting my wonderful gift in person, you have also missed the exchange of century between my dear cousin and your disaster of a best friend. It all started out quite innocently, with Scorpius going on and on about the weather (“It sure is a nice day we’re having, isn’t it Al? Yes, yes, the nicest. Cold, but nice. See that cloud over there, Al? The one shaped like a buttcheek? Oh, and that one looks just like a unicorn! Now, THAT one looks like a unicorn’s buttcheek! What a coincidence, don’t you think? Oh, there’s Voldemort drinking unicorn blood, too! Huh. That’s so 90s.”). See? Innocent. Well, as innocent as it gets with Scorpius, anyway. But THEN. Then it progressed to Scorpius consulting actual cue cards under the table (I kid you not, CUE CARDS, what is he, ME?) and talking about dating reality shows. It went something like this, if you’ll allow me to be Shakespearian:

Scorpius: [fumbling with the cards, visibly stressed] Well, I don’t watch them, obviously, since we don’t have a tv, father and I, obviously, but I would watch them if I could, obviously, because I find the whole concept fasci-lutely abso-nating, obviously. What’s YOUR opinion on them?

Albus: [slurping his butterbeer very loudly even though I raised him better than that] [shut up, Parkinson, we both know I did whatever raising this boy has experienced] I don’t really have an opinion.

Scorpius: [pouting obstinately] you must have one! You do have opinions on things, almost always. only it takes a lot of work to get you to express them, like that time I had to say that jellyfish were the weirdest flowers on Earth thirty-six times for you to snap, tell me they were animals, list twenty-three trivia about them, and then tell me that although the classifications of our planet’s fauna were not perfect, no one had figured out a better system, just like with democracy, and that you liked me, you really did, but I should consider respecting that.

Agnes: [all airy, the way she gets] Oh, I remember that. I still can’t believe you don’t want to be a marine biologist, with so much enthusiasm for the subject. Your talents are wasted up here on land, Al. Are there any underwater mushrooms, I wonder? Anyhow, dating reality shows sure can be a blast.

Albus: [the tips of his ears past pink and on to crimson] Well, if you must know, I do have an opinion, only I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.

Me: [knowingly] Dead mosquitos hurt his feelings, Al. It’s bound to happen sooner or later either way.

Scorpius: [excited like a puppy, and almost drooling like one, too] Exactly, what she said! Dead mosquitos DO hurt my feelings.

Al: [straightening in his chair, which is always a mild shock since he spends the majority of his life slouched and you get used to him being a midget] Well, alright then. I detest those dating shows, if you must know. I’m not even sure if love as humans tend to describe it exists in the first place, much less that it should be orchestrated and monetized. You know that everything in those shows is scripted, don’t you? They’re not a way of finding people’s other halves, they’re just another way to get money for every person naïve enough to tolerate those shows as background noise when they chop cucumbers for dinner. Also, I think that as a society, we’re obsessed with the idea of love to the point where it’s simply unhealthy, and hey, I realize I’m not the best material for the advocate for healthy behaviour, seeing as I spend half my life being depressed in three layers of jumpers, but my point stands.

Scorpius: [OUT OF F****** NOWHERE!] So do you have a crush on anyone?

Me: [with ‘what the f***’ all over my face, no doubt] What.

Agnes: [dabbing at her lip with a napkin] What.

Albus: [definitely sharing the ‘what the f***’ sentiment] WHAT.

Scorpius: [gone red in the face like an allergic reaction] What. Haha, See what I did there? I just wanted to say it because you all— Oh, come on! If you encountered lettuce in your sandwich, you wouldn’t go all ‘what’ on it, I bet! Lettuce or pickles, anyway! It’s just a question alright? Besides, we’re friends, so I deserve to know. No, wait, that’s toxic, I don’t mean that. I mean, you can trust me with this information! And it won’t be like that time I told Zabini to trust me to watch his toad for him, either! I won’t accidentally pawn off your secret to a shady individual in exchange for a sex toy I don’t even use because I thought it was a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

Me: [more incredulous than ever] how the hell did you confuse a dildo with the Leaning Tower of Pisa?!

Scorpius: [all defensive, the nerve!] Well, it was kind of leaning, too, that’s why! Also pink, but I thought, eh, kitschy marketing scheme. Also, I don’t think it’s a dildo. It vibrates.

Me: [more and more horrified] Please don’t tell me that the present tense doesn’t imply you still have it.

Scorpius: [scandalized, of all things] I could never get rid of it! I pawned off Zabini’s toad for it! And besides, it’s quite useful. Like when I have a kink in my neck, I can just use it for massage. Also when I get lonely, I turn it on sometimes, for company. Background noise, if you will, like with the cucumber-cutters and dating shows.

Me: [even more horrified, a level of horrified that calls for a neologism that would convey said horror better than ‘horrifying’ does] I have no words.

Agnes: [the traitor] Well, that’s a first.

Scorpius: [all impatient] ANYWAY, AL, DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON ANYONE.

Al: [frowning in confusion] You keep a vibrator because its humming is like company when you’re lonely? How often are you lonely anyway? WHY are you lonely? Is it my fault that you’re lonely?

At this point, Ariel, I couldn’t help myself. I banged my head on the table. Or, as you’d say it, I banged the shit out of that table. Or out of my head. Or both.

Scorpius: [tearing on his hair, consulting his cue cards again] Well, anyway, who do you think will win the Quidditch cup? My money’s on Hufflepuff, and if that makes me a house traitor, so be it. I think there’s a 73% probability of them beating everyone else, and no one will convince me otherwise.

Al: [quiet as a mouse] I don’t have a crush on anyone.

Scorpius: [somewhat deflated, dropping his cards all over the floor] Oh.

Al: [even more quietly] I don’t ever think about that stuff. I don’t think I’m interested in love and all that.

Scorpius: [trying to consult his cue cards and startling when, surprise, surprise, he doesn’t find them in his hands] …Oh.

Al: [all self-deprecating] Yeah. Oh.

Dreadful Silence: Here I come, triumphant anew.

Agnes: [the sweetheart] Ice cream, anyone?

Me: [unable to help myself] It’s winter.

Agnes: [arching her stupid, perfect eyebrows, and how does she do that anyway? I want eyebrows like hers!] Would you rather stay here, then?

Me: [defeated] Ice cream it is.

And then, while we ate the ice cream, Scorpius said something about ‘no blushing, no stuttering, and no deflating.’

Look, Ariel. I’ll say it because someone has to. We’ve known these two would end up pining ever since we were twelve, and it’s happened at last. Still, it baffles me that Scorpius “underwear is a social construct and shortens your life by a decade, I’ve read a study on it, I swear” Malfoy has realized it first, and not Albus “I have read all the Jane Austen novels back to back, and hey, that Emma sure is oblivious” Potter. Anyway, question is, what do we do?

Faithfully,

Rose

P.S. I am attaching a chicken soup recipe that always heals everyone in our family in a day or two. For the flu. Get better, or something.

*

Dear Rosie,

Oh, I do so love when you go all caps on me. Scream at me with your quill some more? And please, don’t censor the swear words for my benefit. I live for hearing you occasionally say them and having you write them is a decent substitute.

Thank you for the hedgehog but how did you even know I collect glass sculptures? It’s beautiful, and I have been popping the bubblewrap for the past three days, my only consolation in these trying times of headaches and phlegm.

(So much phlegm, Weasley. SO MUCH.)

First of all, in Scorpius’s defence, clouds quite often do look like unicorn buttcheeks. Why, I’ve seen three of those today already while staring out the window and contemplating throwing myself off the windowsill to deal with this flu once and for all. Second of all, what the fuck.

“Your disaster of a best friend” you say, but let’s remember he gets all the crazy from his father, not from my influence. Also, I don’t know him, Scorpius who.

Anyway, here’s what I think: Let’s do nothing, shall we. I assume I’d be correct to think that you too expected it to take them from three to four decades to figure out that they’re meant to be. We were quite off, turns out, and I daresay it wasn’t our lack of logical thinking. Well, not in my case, anyway, Merlin knows you Gryffindors share three braincells between the lot of you (still, I suspect at least two and a half of those are yours). Clearly, this whole Albus-and-Scorpius situation (shall we say screw it and call them Scorbus to waste less ink?) is an ever-evolving monster, completely out of our control. I would rather observe it from a safe distance, lest it explodes, rather than go prodding and poking it. I suspect you might disagree with me on the issue, Your Meddlesomeness (Gryffindors, I swear) but please, at least consider staying out of it.

Also, did you really not know about the vibrator? He calls it Michael and sometimes he puts it under his chin when he talks, “to make himself sound like a robot.” He and Al are truly a match made in heaven, because I suspect that Potter is the only other boy in the whole of Hogwarts who’d use a sex toy for something other than the obvious, only in his case it would probably be discovering a new law of motion or mistaking it for a kitchen appliance. (Actually, on second thought, they might not be a match made in heaven after all. I think we should give them the birds and the bees talk, Rosie. I know, I know, I don’t want to, either, but once they do get their shit sorted, it might prove a complication. You wouldn’t want anyone to land in St. Mungo’s, would you?)

xoxo or something,

Ariel

P.S. I’m sure you have better things to do, but why not come visit and make me that chicken soup yourself? I AM dying, you know. I even contemplated attaching a phlegm sample but ultimately decided against it. Too straight-forward for you. I’m attaching your Christmas present instead, and you better like it, or else.

P.P.S. I have hot chocolate. Yes, I am manipulating you into visiting me. You’re too smart not to guess it. Question is, will you let yourself be manipulated?

*

Dear Ariel,

Here’s some all-caps for you:

OH I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU GOT ME A SIGNED COPY OF ‘THE LITTLE PRINCE’! HOW DID YOU TRACK IT DOWN?

Merlin, I could kiss you!

(I won’t, though. Probably.)

And you told me that you collect glass sculptures, you idiot! Just because you think I don’t listen to you doesn’t mean that I don’t.

Gryffindor is superior and also, no, no way, we’re not calling them Scorbus! That’s too … plebeian. I don’t like the sound of it at all. I say let’s go with Alpius instead. It sounds like the Alps, or like Latin, not ridiculous at all. I can just imagine how they’ll refer to them as such in newspapers once they shock the wizarding world by getting married.

(Which might happen in three years, or in thirty, who knows???)

Also, I’ll have you know that I did actually explain sexual intercourse to Albus once. I made a PowerPoint, even, except he kept interrupting me to point out typos (which were only there because I hadn’t slept in three days and had drunk 1,5 litres of coffee and SHUT UP) and to ask if he could go back to reading “this absolutely fascinating article about pinecones.” By the end, he told me that he thought of intercourse the same way he thought of the savoir-vivre of being knighted with a sword. “You only need to learn all about it once there’s a more or less confirmed chance of it ever happening to you,” he said. Also, he wrote “no popcorn supplied” on the feedback survey I gave him after and marked me 3 out of 5 because of the typos. In other words: I’m not having that conversation with him again. As for Scorpius, you work on him. He’s yours during the weekdays.

Merry Christmas,

Don’t-Call-Me-Rosie-You-Heathen

P.S. Oh, hell, I’ll come over and make you that soup, sure. Consider me manipulated.

*

Dear Scorpius,

I was thinking a lot about what you said the other day in Hogsmeade. Well, you said many a thing, but I’m referring to the ‘lonely’ thing, not to the whole vibrator discourse. Well, actually, the ‘lonely’ thing is related to the whole vibrator discourse but I am not going to be discussing vibrators in this essay. Letter. LETTER. L-E-T-T-E-R, Albus, get a grip. Sorry, Christmas homework has been killing me because I spent until yesterday putting it off in favour of trying to read all the Scott Heim novels before Christmas Eve (sadly, I’m failing horribly both at Scott Heim and the Transfiguration essay).

Anyway, I just wanted to say that if you ever feel lonely and there’s a chance I could somehow help (not very likely, I do realize) please tell me. I hate thinking of you somewhere down in the dungeons, only a vibrator for company. Wow, it’s really difficult to avoid mentioning it. Anyway. I might be out of line but I think that sometimes you’re half-pretending to be all happy and cheerful. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I’ve seen you upset, and I see you every day. I just don’t like imagining you all sad somewhere, everyone none the wiser. I know I’m pretty lousy as friends go, and I don’t have much to offer, but if I could ever be a sort of consolation, you know I have tea and blankets and ears.

I guess that’s all. Sorry for the extraordinary level of awkwardness.

Also, regarding that other thing you said, do YOU have a crush on someone?

Merry Christmas,

Al

*

Dear Al,

Dear Salazar in the grave, you are so oblivious. I know, I know, you’ll tell me that I’m the oblivious one, and you’ll probably remind me of that time Binns had a thing with the exchange ghost-teacher from Beauxbatons and of how I genuinely believed that they were counting turnips together in that greenhouse for two hours, but, may I remind you, you only knew they weren’t really counting turnips because you’re a nerd and knew there were no turnips in any of the greenhouses, not because it was that implausible!

I do get lonely. I’m human, you know. The reason why I’m always cheerful around you is (apart from it being my personality to be all Scorpius-like around other people) that you’re delightful and I’m always happy when we’re in the same room. I don’t mind occasionally getting sad or lonely because I know that it doesn’t mean that I don’t have anyone in my life, just that I don’t have anyone by my side that very minute. I still know that I have father, and Parkinson, and Zabini, and you. How could I ever forget? Anyway, don’t worry, I’m not replacing you with a vibrator (wow, that sure sounds wrong, even I can tell). I actually often do come to you when I feel down, only you don’t know it, because the mere sight of you makes me so stupidly happy that by the time I’m close enough for you to see my facial expression, I’m already back to cheerful. Magic, huh?

And yes, I actually do have a crush on someone. They’re sort of wonderful, but I don’t think it’ll go anywhere. It’s alright, though. It’s enough to be able to look at them, and I already have more than that anyway.

Merry Christmas,

Scorpius

P.S. What Transfiguration essay??????????????

*

ROSE,

SCORPIUS HAS A CRUSH ON SOMEONE AND I’M PANICKING.

WHY AM I PANICKING?

I’m locked in the cupboard under the stairs and Dad is panicking, too, banging on the door from the outside, saying something about childhood flashbacks. I don’t know what he was doing yelling at people stuck in cupboards in his childhood but he could just walk away, problem solved???

Anyway, HELP. I think it might be an illness of some sort.

With escalating panic,

Al

*

Dear WoeWizard,

If your friend asks you if you have a crush on someone after asking you about your opinion on dating reality shows, does that mean that they want you to have a crush on someone because they have a crush on someone themselves and want to discuss the crushes with you the way girls in teen movies from the 80s do during sleepovers, not that I’d know???

Also if your friend having a crush on someone makes you want to dig your way to the centre of the Earth, speak to no one but moles for the rest of your life, and sing country music as you slowly descend into madness, does it mean you’re growing up? I’m already fifteen, and, to be honest, I thought I was done with puberty.

Faithfully yours,

~~Albus Potter~~

~~NOTAlbusPotter~~

Albert Otter

*

Dear Albert Otter,

Please don’t dig your way to the centre of the Earth. I hear it’s quite hot there, and you’ll only get your clothes filthy. No one likes being left behind, it’s not a puberty thing. I advise that you talk this over with your father, actually, whoever he is. Preferably for hours. It’s in HIS job description to deal with this.

The best of luck to all of us,

WoeWizard

*

Dear Potter,

Our kids are in love with each other, and I’m not touching that with a pole,

Draco

*

Dear Malfoy,

I’m sure ‘that’ wouldn’t want to touch you with a pole either. And what do you mean, Scorpius and Lily are in love with each other?

Harry

*

Dear Potter,

Ugh. You’re so… heterosexual. It’s disgusting.

Malfoy

*

Dear Malfoy,

I was just kidding. Of course they’re in love with each other! I haven’t even properly met your son yet, and I can tell! I have properly met Albus, and can tell! Anyway, I agree about the not-touching-it-with-a-pole thing. Let’s just watch things unfold from a safe distance, no?

Harry

P.S. When are we getting drinks again?

*

Dear Rose,

I get it now. I was just scared that he’d live me behind and go be happy-ever-after with this crush of his, that’s why I panicked, but you know what? That’s not fair to Scorpius AT ALL. Even if he started dating someone, I know he wouldn’t stop being my friend. I know it, even though I’m a worthless amoeba. I know it because he’s the best friend one could have, even if one doesn’t deserve it, and you know what else? I hope his crush likes him back, I really do. It would make him happy, and no one deserves to be happy like Scorpius. It still makes me feel uneasy, because I’m a selfish idiot, but I’m going to try and be a good friend and ignore the uneasiness.

Merlin, what a relief to know what it was! For a moment there, it felt like I was dying, and for all the weltschmerz I live by, I didn’t like it one bit.

Al

*

Dear Ariel,

Now you have to make me chicken soup. For my BRAIN.

Merry Christmas,

Rose

*

Dear Scorpius,

Sorry for the late reply. I was really struggling with that essay. And other stuff, too. Some of it I can tell you about, some of it I can’t (sorry). Here’s what I can tell you:

James has been suspiciously nice to me. He doesn’t trip me up in the kitchen every morning now, only every other morning, and the other day he actually asked me what I was reading and it wasn’t a snort. He only snorted when I told him it was “The Great Gatsby.” I think it’s Teddy’s influence again. He’s spending the holidays with us this year, too, and all his nice might be contagious. Only Lily’s immune, and continues to be a little gremlin, but at least she has other hobbies besides making fun of me. She’s growing up to be somewhat of a Renaissance man. Woman. Girl. Alien?

Another thing I can tell you:

Gretchen told me that I should care less about global warming and more about Squib rights and recognition. She meant it as a joke, but I think I should care about both of those things. Shame I don’t really care about either. I mean, I don’t even DO anything. I don’t know why everyone keeps painting me as some kind of activist even though all I do is complain about how terrible the world is wrapped in a blanket and do nothing to try and fix it.

(I only blame myself for this partially because I maintain that at this point the world can’t be fixed. I know that you’ve tried to weed out my nihilism, and I applaud your efforts but alas, I am still a sea sponge. Less than, they at least filter water.)

Yet another thing I can tell you:

You know how Emily Dickinson said “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself”? I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. A lot, a lot.

Anyway, you don’t have to tell me who your crush is but how about you tell me about them? Nothing revealing, just why you like them. I have read in ‘What To Do When Your Best Friend Falls In Love: A Guide” (which I bought the other day because it made me think of you and because it said on the cover: “Gilderoy Lockhart DOES NOT recommend” which I say is reason enough to trust something will be good literature) that one should provide one’s friend with opportunities to talk about their crush. Apparently, they can get very monothematic, “those smitten ones” but it should be indulged because “when someone is in love, they’re either already on the rooftop shouting about it, or about to find one, and better your chimney than the top of Empire State Building” which I suppose means that I should listen about your crush so you don’t go talking about it in newspapers or something. Which is something you would totally do. So if you want to, tell me all about this mystery person. Unless you don’t want to. That’s fine, too. Whatever you want is fine and whatever you don’t want is not fine. I’ll shut up now.

Best,

Al

*

Dear Al,

You DO care about global warming and all that! You just say that you don’t because Merlin forbid someone knows that you’re passionate about something, but I’ve seen you at 5 am, collecting trash outside! And I support Squib rights all the way, but please, first make sure it’s not a ploy to overthrow the government. You never say it outright but I can read between the lines, and I know that this Gretchen is very politically ambitious, and we both know that if someone’s to overthrow the government, it should be me!

And sure, I’ll tell you about my crush. It’s a he and he’s super smart, at least as smart as you! He’s also pretty handsome, or maybe handsome is not the right word. Adorable. He’s adorable and he doesn’t even try. (I mean it with the not-trying. You’d like him, he’s ideologically against combs, too). He has a good heart, in fact, it’s so good that I suspect he secretly has two of those (though, sadly, I don’t think he’ll give me even one). He really cares about the world and tries to make it a better place in his own adorable way. He’s also very modest, though I can’t for the life of me figure out why. He has a freckle on the back of his ear that I’m sure he doesn’t know about, and sometimes I stare at it in class to remind myself that the world won’t end even though mother doesn’t love me and everyone thinks I’m stupid and I can’t fly. He wears a lot of warm woollen socks just like you and once, I convinced the house-elves that a pair of them was mine when they were doing laundry because my feet were cold. Not my proudest moment but I regret nothing. (Hey, maybe that’s how you lost your socks in November? People do that more often than you’d think, claiming others’ laundry as their own! Either that or it was the Sock Monster, BEWARE!) His hair ~~is~~ looks impossibly soft, and I feel the urge to pretend there’s something in it just to reach out and touch it approximately five times a day. He can go on and on about the weirdest things and sometimes I think he must know everything but at least he doesn’t know this: I simply adore him.

Al, he’s even better than frogs.

Best,

Scorpius

*

Dear Grandmother,

To make last year’s correspondence a tradition, I decided to update you on the Albus Severus Potter situation. I have made some progress since last year and can now confidently say that I would die for him, kill for him, and possibly even die for him and then resurrect myself to kill for him. It’s unrequited and, the irony, he is being a model best friend, asking me about this person I like with genuine interest.

Well.

Initially, I thought it would be painful to discuss it with him but actually, I must reluctantly confess that, so far, it’s been a freaking blast! See, now I can wax poetic about him, and he has no reason to disagree! He doesn’t know it’s him I’m talking about, so no matter how much I compliment him, there’s no way for him to start denying it and be all self-deprecating! It’s brilliant! I am going to enjoy being hopelessly in love with him so much, Grandmother (insert evil laughter)! As the youngsters say these days: I intend to compliment the shit out of him.

Forgive the profanities but after Father’s and Grandfather’s insult war I don’t think there’s a point to censor myself. After all, you’ve heard worse.

With love,

Scorpius

P.S. This is going to be very forward of me but by now I know that you and Grandfather are stuck in a loveless marriage of convenience and you seemed very lonely on Christmas, which is why I wanted to suggest that you download Tinder. Apparently, that’s how you meet people nowadays? If that doesn’t sound like your thing, I can lend you my vibrator, it’s a really good cure for loneliness!

*

Dear Rose,

I can’t be a good friend! I’m too selfish and evil! This guy he likes is some effortlessly pretty angel and I’m sure that as soon as he starts liking Scorpius back (which he will, because who wouldn’t like Scorpius?), Scorpius will forget all about me, not because he’s a bad friend but because who wouldn’t, for Mr. Walking Perfection? I’m supposed to be supportive and instead I keep hoping this crush of his gets eaten by the Sock Monster.

I don’t even believe in the Sock Monster!

With self-loathing,

Al

P.S. I can’t believe Scorpius wears that guy’s socks. I bet they’re ugly socks.

*

Dear Rosie (yes, I insist on calling you that),

I am so making you that soup, sister.

Ariel

*

Dear WoeWizard,

What is Tinder and what is a vibrator?

ISoldMyPearlsToPayForMySins

*

Dear Sir Editor,

GIVE ME A PAY RAISE OR I’M QUITTING.

Kindest Regards,

Draco Malfoy

*

Dear Myself,

Whatever it is you want from Scorpius, I’m sure you don’t deserve it, so don’t dwell on it and get over yourself.

Sincerely,

Al

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you think that a 15 yo not recognizing a vibrator is a stretch, that's because you didn't hear 15yo me asking her best friend loud enough for the whole bus to hear, "so what is this vibrator thing?" 
> 
> That said, I actually had so much fun writing this chapter, and hope you had fun reading it and are not promising the devil you'll deliver me to his doorstep


	7. nourish nourish your turtleheart, December 2022

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, this took ages. ...I'm sorry. 
> 
> The title is from Björk's All Neon Like. Warning for an abundance of explicit pining.

Dear WoeWizard,

You might not remember me but I wrote you to seek your advice exactly one year ago and, well, not to question your competence, but I am sad to report that the little advice you did provide didn’t exactly prove fruitful. Maybe because you told me to discuss my problems with my father, which would work if my father wasn’t, well, my father. I did try a few times but I would always chicken out and start talking about something like how flowers are the reproductive organs of plants or start listing all the by-now discovered black holes. And then there was that time I summarised the whole plot of “Gone With The Wind” for him by using kitchen utensils for props. Scarlett O’Hara was a steak knife and considering how dramatic she gets, the whole show resulted in a hurried visit to St. Mungo’s, so all in all, there’s been little success.

Things you learn when your best friend has a crush on someone:

*he’s just soooooooooooooooooo smart*

*and his eyelashes are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo pretty*

*I think that he might know the names of all the stars but when he glances out the window at night and they’re all over the sky, his breath still catches like they’re magic and not rocks that people we don’t know named*

*but ALSO, what does he MEAN they’re ROCKS?*

(That one was pretty offensive because I’m pretty sure that I’m the one who told him that, I mean, why should Mystery Guy get all the credit?)

*his eyes are like lakes, you know, but not the boring sort, no, they’re the lakes that have whole meadows at their bottom and where tadpoles don’t get eaten and where all the fish are happy and love each other and have fish sleepovers and paint each other’s scales wonderful colours and I would kiss his eyes if I could but I can’t because personal space and also eyes are wet, I guess, not that it’d stop me from trying—*

*I hate it when he’s sad. Do you think cocoa would make him feel better?*

(Which, by the way, I was sad too, that day, thanks for caring, and how should I know anyway? I don’t even know the guy! Or at least I don’t know IF I know him)

*He’s like that Shakespeare sonnet. What do you mean, WHICH ONE? ALL of them!*

*I would rob a bank for him if he asked but he’d never ask*

*He knows everything about ostriches and Baroque architecture and the origins of origami!*

(WELL, I do too, I could tell him all about it! He doesn’t need some MORON for that!)

*He’s a bit of a mess but I don’t like tidy things anyway*

*I just, I just ADORE him, you know?*

He stopped after that because I was frustrated enough that I threw a shoe. It flew right out the window and some idiot on a broom (my brother, maybe?) thought it was a Bludger and sent it into the lake. My friend lives in the dungeons and, apparently, soon after he saw the Giant Squid nibbling on my trainer underwater, slurping the laces like noodles and munching on the rubber. Figures.

Anyway, I tried getting a crush on someone for solidarity and it just didn’t work. I’m not that into people, to be honest. It’s nice to discuss how Rousseau was into BDSM with someone every now and then, you know, your good old intellectual discussion over a cup of tea, but that’s not really a good basis for romantic intent, is it? Anyway, I tried, I swear, but I’m just not very good at intending. I mean, sometimes it’s like, oh, yeah, sure, they know a lot about the Inca Empire and they’ve read “Dead Souls” and they have nice, I don’t know, elbows, but it’s always a bit, I mean, talking to people is nice and all but at the end of the day I always just want to go listen to all the ridiculous things this friend of mine says instead. It feels like coming home, to be corny, except not really, because when is coming home ever that nice?

Really, I thought the shoe incident would settle it but after two weeks of serene calm, he was at it again, all “His fingers! His mnemonic devices! His greasy fringe!.” And because I’m trying to be a good friend, and because he’s, well, important, I don’t have the heart to tell him to shut up about this stupid hipster of his.

Some more advice, for old times’ sake? I asked my cousin first but all she said was, Merlin, Salazar, Mary and Jesus, Albert, figure it out for yourself!

Still Desperate,

Albert Otter

P.S. Actually, please don’t publish this. Reply in a letter or don’t, but this is far too revealing.

*

Dear Scorpius,

I know that you’re in love and all, so I have prepared a list of things you might want to keep in mind considering you’ve already suffered through three black eyes and two broken ribs this year as a result of some lovesick daydreaming.

Don’t think about Mr. Perfect while up on a ladder adjusting the Christmas decorations your father will no doubt be unable to spell in place.

Don’t think about Mr. Perfect while walking on ice.

Don’t think about Mr. Perfect while walking, period.

Don’t think about Mr. Perfect while using the toaster. You don’t want to have to go through re-growing your eyelashes again, I’m sure.

Don’t think about Mr. Perfect when chopping onions.

Don’t think about Mr. Perfect when holding a knife AT ALL.

Don’t think about Mr. Perfect when in a room equipped with a knife.

Don’t think about Mr. Perfect unless you get rid of ALL knives first.

Don’t think about Mr. Perfect when drinking hot beverages.

~~Don’t think about Mr. Perfect ever. Please.~~

I’m sorry if this comes across as condescending but you did almost die approximately fourteen times this year, you know.

Best,

Al

P.S. Are you mad at me?

*

Dear Idiot,

Are we still not talking about what happened before the break?

With Eternal Exasperation,

Rose

P. S. Mom is spending Christmas Eve with Aunt Luna. At this point, calling her ‘Aunt’ feels a bit strange. They’re going to a Christmas tree market to look for live nutcrackers hiding in the branches. Luna is suddenly very into Tchaikovsky, insisting his ballets are real stories cleverly masquerading as fiction and for some reason, Mom decided to indulge her and didn’t even mention a headache.

Weird.

*

Dear Alb ~~us~~ ert ~~P~~ Otter,

Look, it’s been a year. Sit the boy down and just ask him: “Who are you in love with?.” Consider Veritaserum. At this point, I don’t care about ethics or the law. I just want ~~my kid to stop screaming in his pillow every three minutes~~ some peace and quiet.

Consider cinnamon cookies, too. Spiked with Veritaserum. It always works – proved empirically.

Best of luck,

WoeWizard (Still, despite no pay rise)

*

Dear Rose,

What happened before the break??? ~~??????????????????????????~~

With love,

Al

*

Dear Ariel,

I know that we weren’t supposed to interfere but I crave godlike control over this whole fiasco more than I crave “Wuthering Heights,” and you know how I feel about “Wuthering Heights.” I think we need codenames. I can think of some if you provide patience because I sure need it. I think there’s a sale in Hogsmeade, half price or something. Buy it for me as a Christmas present?

He doesn’t know about that thing that happened before the break.

HE DOESN’T REMEMBER THE THING.

To quote The Bard himself:

Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt frustration will lead me to murdering my own cousin in some dark, dark alcove.

With Growing Impatience,

Rose

*

Dear Albus,

Do you really want to know what happened? Because if you do then I am going to write out the answer for you in lemon juice below:

(I know I could SPELL it invisible but do let me celebrate Muggles’ greatest inventions every now and then, it’s only important, this sort of a cultural exchange, one-way as it is)

We all got drunk under James’s supervision (who’s idea was THAT?) in the Room of Requirement, we played Twister, which is how you got the bruises and which is why your kneecap is a little floppier than before, and then we played Spin the Bottle. I had to kiss Ariel’s forehead, James made out with three people and one potted plant, Agnes kissed the shit out of my nose and then I had to kiss your cheek, which, really, we don’t need a bottle for that, since you’re my favourite, and then you sort of wobbled, fell over twice, and spun, and guess what, it landed on *drums, but not really, because that Swan Lake waltz works better* one Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy. You blinked nineteen times, someone told you to kiss his hand, and you literally scrambled backward and into James’s lap, all “no, no, I would NEVER, that’s so DISGUSTING, it’s like, predatory, his hand doesn’t even, like, expect it, and there’s the issue of, you know, LACK OF CONSENT, since I don’t think hands can vocalize consent and we all know that silence is not acceptance unless we’re talking, like, social reforms and, like, I think I’m going to pass out only I’m not passing out and just— James, if you knock me out I’ll give you all my money.”

Of course, I only understood it all because I’ve been dealing with your confusing speech patterns for sixteen years now (well, fourteen depending on one’s definition of ‘speech’), but you were sort of slurring so I’m pretty sure that the rest of the company only caught the “no, I would NEVER” and the “that’s so DISGUSTING” and the “LACK OF CONSENT,” so it’s safe to assume that Scorpius thinks you hate him now. Well, hate his hands, anyway, which is a very specific vendetta to have, but it’s Scorpius, he’s not exactly going to question it. Also, you fell asleep right after without James needing to hit you (which I like to think he wouldn’t actually do anyhow, I know that it’s James but he does love you Al, he does) and then we took you to your room and all the way there you kept talking in your sleep about “not being worthy of hands this good, blah blah blah.” The eagle knocker took one look at you and let us into the Ravenclaw tower without asking us to solve a riddle, you know, even though I was 100% up for it.

(It’s alright, you don’t have to apologise. Later, I bribed the knocker to ask me something and I guessed it in thirteen and a half seconds. Sloppy, I know, but I was drunk myself, after all.)

Anyway, Merlin, Al, it’s high time you displayed some emotional intelligence, don’t you think?

Rose

*

Dear WoeWizard,

You don’t deserve a pay rise! You haven’t helped me fix anything!

Albert Otter

*

Dear WoeWizard,

…I apologise.

Albert Otter

*

Rosie Dear,

Even if patience could be bought, you’d be immune. I’ll put a girdle round about the Earth in forty minutes, Weasley – I would help if I knew how but herbs are no contest for you.

Codenames though! That I can do. I’ll be Poet, and you Poetry.

Joke, joke. Don’t get too invested, Rosie, hey? Scorbus will live. Or not. Let the kids figure it out, excruciating as it is. Also, do YOU remember what happened before the break? Not that I expected any different, but you can’t hold your liquor at all, can you?

Do paraphrase Shakespeare at me some more! It’s a delight.

Merry Christmas,

Ariel

*

Dear Albert Otter,

Why, no worries.

(Do note the sarcasm.)

Merry Christmas,

WoeWizard

*

Scorpius,

I DON’T hate your hands! OR you! Is this why you haven’t looked me in the eyes for two weeks? And haven’t replied to my letter? I’m SORRY

With Deep Regret,

Al

*

Dear James,

Treat this as a joke and I’ll split you into more pieces than Voldemort did his soul. What exactly transpired during that fateful party before the break, when you were, you know, supposed to SUPERVISE?

With Urgency,

Rose

*

Dear Rose,

~~I AM NOT PANICKING AT ALL. I’LL BE GONE FOR A WHILE, TELL MY PARENTS NOT TO WORRY.~~

I am not panicking at all. I’ll be gone for a while, tell my parents not to worry.

Merry Christmas,

Al

*

Dearest Rose,

Oh, oh. Do you really not remember? Assuming the whole hand fiasco is not what you mean, cousin dear, what happened is you kissed one Ariel Parkinson on the forehead.

Except.

You kinda stared at her for two minutes before getting to it, mate. You were all, kneeling in front of her, deadly serious, and she quoted Mary Shelley at you or something, which I only know because Al screeched “MARY SHELLEY!” when she did, and then you sort of, uh, grabbed her face? Just put your hands on her cheeks and kept staring, not gonna lie, it was a bit unsettling, and then she said “Well?” and you kind of, uh, fell into her. It was like you just gave up and crumpled and you DID kiss her on the forehead only it was like, well, like you just sort of swayed into her and that’s where your lips accidentally landed. You squeezed her hand too, and I’m pretty sure you’d have fallen asleep leaning on her like you were only then Agnes dragged you away, pinched you three times and you were good as new.

…And then you explained to the whole room why every evil woman Odysseus met during his 10-year-long sail back home was not really evil, cited some sources, and told Ariel to spin.

Oh, and after we took Al to the Ravenclaw tower, you bribed the eagle knocker into telling you a riddle and then it took you approximately thirteen and a half seconds to tell the knocker that you refused to solve a riddle that obvious because it was simply insulting to your intellect, but, to be honest, Rosie, we could both tell you just didn’t know the answer, the knocker and me.

Anyway, you kids have to learn how to drink properly. I know, I know, technically my fault. Wait till you see what I got you for Christmas, though, you’ll forgive me right away. Also, out of curiosity, have you asked Parkinson out yet or are you going to flirtatiously quote boring lit at each other for a few more years?

*

Dear Al,

Don’t worry, even if you do hate my hands, I won’t amputate them. I considered it for a while but I decided it would be impractical.

Merry Christmas,

Scorpius

*

Dear WoeWizard,

Avyfaegfuyaefg

NotYourSon

*

Dear WoeWizard,

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

Albert Otter

*

Dear WoeWizard,

HDVFYVIUW!!!!!!!

ApparentlyInLoveWithASlytherin

*

Dear Al,

WHERE DID YOU GO?

Rose

*

Dear Rose,

Merlin, Rose. I. I. What even. I. I love. Him. I love Scorpius, did you know?

Of course you did. If anyone would, that’d be you. Definitely not me, huh. But I do know now. See, I went to Hogwarts. I just, I needed to consult someone, and the only person (though ‘person’ is not exactly adequate) I could think of was that stupid, dirty Sorting Hat.

I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but let me explain.

Merlin, my hands are, just, shaking, Shaking SO BAD. I. Okay. Okay.

Okay, so I went to Hogwarts and someone who’s staying there for Christmas (And Merlin, I shouldn’t ever complain about a thing because I at least can always go home, you know?) said hi to me in the corridor, and the paintings kept picking on me like they always do, criticising my hair and my face and my everything, all “saved the world yet, Potter Junior?” (which, honestly, screw them, because Dad had to deal with one evil but noseless man and not with the fact that soon, there’ll be more plastic bottles in the sea than fish) and I just, all I could think was Scorpius, Scorpius, Scorpius, Scorpius, Scorpius, Scorpius, Scorpius, Scorpius, ScorpiusScorpiusScor 

Well, you get the idea.

Anyway I snuck into the headmaster’s office and I pulled the old thing off the top of some dusty shelf and I sat down on the ground and put it on.

I don’t know why Rose. It just seemed like the thing to do.

By now you know the story of how Scorpius got sorted into Slytherin, so I won’t repeat it (let’s not waste paper, or something) but the hat barely said “Why hello” before I started, well, let’s just say I wasn’t very polite. I basically told it, told it that the school didn’t need it, that the houses and the sorting were all bullshit and that Scorpius was only in Slytherin because of some noble, backward reasons, but that other people who were in Slytherin because they fit there were noble, too, and that people grow and change anyway and what if I’m a Gryffindor now, not a Ravenclaw? I know, I know, I am a total Ravenclaw, but I kept blubbering anyway, on, and on, and at some point, it was just me having a mild panic attack, barely breathing, telling this stupid stinky hat that Scorpius was not snotty at all, that the hat had no idea, that he was the best thing that ever happened to me and the best person in the whole world even though the world was overpopulated and full of great people, and that the hat would never know him like I did, and didn’t deserve to know him anyway, no one did if they weren’t going to love him, after, and by the way did the hat know who it was that Scorpius loved?

And suddenly I was crying and wiping my nose with the hat, staring at the white stain on its inside that Scorpius insists is either mayonnaise or sperm, and the hat went, so you came all the way here to yell at me because Scorpius Malfoy is wonderful?

And it hit me that I did. I really did. Because he was. Is. Wonderful. And I do. Love him.

I hope I’ll survive myself, Rose.

Sorry,

Al

*

Dear Ariel,

It has been brought to my attention that I might have, uh, imposed, somewhat. Before the break. I’ve also had an epiphany of a sort.

See, the thing is, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you, which shouldn’t be surprising because you did quote Shakespeare at me, but somehow is anyway. No matter. Obviously, now that the cat’s out of the bag, we should decide on a course of action. As I see it, we have two options: either we date, or we don’t. I decided to be fair and provide aid in your deliberating on the matter, hence the attached list of pros and cons of dating me. Initially, I intended to strategically start with cons so that the pros would provide favourable contrast, but alas. I’d rather be fair, I suppose.

Well, here goes nothing.

Pros of dating Rose Weasley:

One: as you might have noticed, I have red hair. That is, admittedly, quite common at Hogwarts, considering that most of my overtly large family goes there, but is far less common outside the school. In fact, studies show that less than 2% of the world’s population has red hair (see bibliography for relevant sources) and so, you could say that we redheads are a sort of an endangered species. Surely, you can see how dating one could be seen as a certain, uh, advantage. It’s a little like having a panda bear for a pet, no? (Of course, you could date one of my many cousins but they are all far less adapted than me, I assure you).

Two: Unlimited access to my notes. You know the power of my notes, Parkinson. Just imagine, you could sleep through all the classes and still, you’d pass all the tests with flying colours.

Three: I have read a manual on kissing and though I haven’t yet had the chance to put what I’ve learned into practice, there’s a good chance I won’t drool all over you like most teenage boys are wont to do.

Four: I make great pancakes. Ask Al.

Five: I would win debates for you. You wouldn’t even have to ask.

Cons of dating Rose Weasley:

One: As a natural redhead, I turn lobster-red whenever it’s sunny and might be a suspect if witch hunts ever become a thing again.

Two: I would force you to study from my notes and I would quiz you FOR HOURS. There’d be CUE CARDS. Beware the cue cards.

Three: I have never kissed anyone. Unless your forehead counts. It would probably be a disaster.

Four: I’m too selfish to ever remember to make people pancakes.

Five: You’d probably have to physically restrain me to keep me from winning debates for you, and it probably wouldn’t work anyway.

Six: I can’t bake.

Seven: I can’t dance.

Eight: I can’t sing.

Nine: I’m simply insufferable.

Ten: Every now and then, I rant at people for an hour on a topic they’re not even remotely interested in.

Yes, there are more cons than pros, but consider this extra advantage of mine:

Six: I’m pretty self-aware.

Let me know when you decide. If you’re unsure, I’d be more than happy to provide more data.

With Love,

Rose

*

Dear Al,

FUCKING FINALLY. When will you tell him?

Rose

*

Dear Rose,

Haha, never, haha

Al

*

Dear Rosie-pie,

Sweet Salazar, you’re one in a kind, and it’s not because you’re a redhead either. I’ve only liked you forever, why, of course I’ll date you, you impossible, IMPOSSIBLE, human. And I would never restrain you to keep you from debating, I’d just microwave some popcorn and enjoy the show, hooooooney.

Merriest Christmas, Likewise With Love,

Ariel

*

Dear Scorpius,

Please don’t be mad. You’re my favourite person in the world. Literally. SO literally.

Al

*

Dear WoeWizard,

The person I love hates me. The person I love hates me. The person I love hates me.

NotYourSon

*

Dear WoeWizard,

I love him and he hates me, I love him and he hates me, I love him and he HATES me.

Albert Otter

*

Dear WoeWizard,

Just quit already, mate.

WoeWizard

*

Dear Potter,

Get me drunk, please.

Draco

*

Dear Malfoy,

Consider it done.

Harry

*

Dear Al,

It’s fine! I’m fine! I still have hands! Father says hi! He said that you’re stupid, too, but I don’t think I’m meant to pass THAT on. Oh wait, he says I’m definitely meant to pass it on. Well, it’s done now, anyway.

Hey, I know that sometimes I’m terrible and I don’t get why you’d put up with it but thank you. I don’t think you hate me. I might have, for a moment, but how could you hate me when you spent countless nights teaching me History of Magic this semester, and when you know how I like my tea, and when you sang me a lullaby when I asked even though you hate singing?

You’re my favourite, too, and I love Christmas, I do, but I wish we were back at school already, playing card games against Rose, my chin on your shoulder as I’m pretending to be smart enough to be any help. You know how in “His Dark Materials” they tried to separate the kids and their daemons? And the unbearable pain of it? I’m being dramatic, I know, but it’s sort of like that without my best friend, and my best friend is you.

I hope that you’re warm, and I hope that you’re smiling, and I hope that you’ll like your present.

Best,

Scorpius

*

Rose,

He gave me a snow globe except he spelled it so that it always snows inside it, even if you don’t shake it. There’s a polar bear inside, too, and two stick figurines holding hands. It’s lovely.

I’m scared to hold it but I keep holding it anyway.

Al

*

~~Dear Scorpius,~~

~~You always talk about it, the taste of snow, and it got me thinking. I never, I mean, I DON’T think about these things but it feels like I could start. Kissing, and all that. It never, held any appeal, except I get it now, how someone might want to know how~~

~~Well. I know what snow tastes like, but say, do you taste like snow?~~

~~Al~~

*

~~Dear Al,~~

~~I love you and it’s tiring and it hurts but I’m not stopping, no matter what. You’re the best not-choice I’ve ever not-made.~~

~~Scorpius~~

*

Dear Scorpius,

I would never win a game of cards against Rose without you, even if I never win them with you there either. And besides, it’s better with you. Pretty much everything is.

Scorpius, Scorpius, have you seen it? Have you seen all that snow?

Al

*

Dear WoeWizard,

You know what. I think that somehow, I’ll be fine.

NotYourSon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What Rose quotes is good old Hamlet, "I’ll put a girdle round about the Earth in forty minutes" is Puck, and "I’ll be Poet, and you Poetry" is pretty much François Coppée's "I will be the poet, and you will be the poetry." As for Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that's him on spanking in his "Confessions": Who would believe this childish discipline, received at eight years old, from the hands of a woman of thirty, should influence my propensities, my desires, my passions, for the rest of my life…
> 
> ...Was everyone aware that he was into that? Why didn't anyone ever tell me? This is the sort of party trivia I live for. 
> 
> Anyway, one chapter to go, probably a looong one. I promise to resolve everything and provide fluff. Please leave a comment if you have any thoughts <3


	8. i won't even wish for snow, December 2023

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is, of course, from "All I Want For Christmas Is You" because I couldn't not. 
> 
> Anyway, this is it guys! I am definitely going to be emotional about this soon! Actually already am :,) Thank you so much for everybody's support! I'm in love with every single comment for this fic and I'm late with an update again but here it is at last!

Dear Al,

I have consulted father and yes, we will gladly attend the Christmas dinner at the Burrow, or, as father called it in a low voice, naively believing I couldn’t hear him, The Great Yearly Weasley-Potter Turkey Fiasco. Apparently, you’ve made the papers due to things exploding every December? I wouldn’t know, I don’t read political hogwash. Anyhow, we’ll be there and ready to have stuffed birds exploded all over us. I myself decided to approach it as a challenge – this, at last, is the elaborate bullying I’ve been preparing for years for, never mind that it’s not actually bullying.

We will also bring cake, but don’t get your hopes up! So far, father has tried to make one three times and he only didn’t mistake laundry detergent for flour once, except then he mistook ground garlic for sugar. On reflection, that might have been because he has a cold and his nose was too blocked to smell all that he was merrily tossing in the bowl, but really, it’s for the best, because he kept sneezing into the dough, and that couldn’t have been sanitary!

(Don’t worry though, father will be fine by Christmas! I’m very determined to get through the chickenpox or yellow fever or whatever it is he’s suffering from. (common cold, he’s saying as he reads this over my shoulder, but sadly, sick people simply can’t be trusted.) So far, I’ve been trying proven healing methods such as essential oils and horoscopes. No progress as of yet, but I’m optimistic. We’re trying animal faeces ointments next.)

(Weird— father just ran away screeching, shut himself up in his room and I can hear him moving furniture around and yelling something about barricades, of all things. Nothing against revolutionary fervour, but I think menopause might be hitting him along with the tuberculosis. I’ll have to look up remedies for that, too.)

Also, are we supposed to wear disguises? I know that it’s not Halloween, but I’ve never been to a proper Christmas dinner that wasn’t hosted by my Voldemort-sympathizer of a grandfather, so what the hell do I know? Please do let us know about the dress code. Should we wear robes, shirts, skirts, quilts, bonnets, ugly Weasley jumpers, nothing at all?

(We’d probably be cold if it’s the last one but what are warming spells for?)

Actually, is it okay if I come dressed as Darth Vader? It’s just this idea I had. I don’t know, I think it would loosen the atmosphere, don’t you? Who doesn’t like theme parties, anyway? Then father could be Luke, because subversion!

By the way, is Parkinson invited? What with her and Rose being still very much disgustingly in love and constantly flirting by quoting archaic texts at each other and through some weird one-upmanship of being suave, even though neither of them can pull it off. Honestly, they’d be unbearable except for how they’re going to give me their firstborn. No, I haven’t consulted it with them yet but they HAVE to agree. Think about it. I’ll be lonely and miserable forever – the least I deserve as a consolation is a spawn, even if it’s not MY spawn. Now them, they will continue being obnoxiously happy and so won’t need a screaming and shitting baby to distract them from the ever-expanding treasury of their love and joy, Amen.

LOOK, I JUST WANT THE KID FOR THE WEEKENDS, ALRIGHT. I’ll settle for the weekends! Also, I want to help picking a name! I have some brilliant ideas such as Rasputin and Henrietta. I looked them up on babynames.com and I think that the least Parkinson and Rose could do as friends who won’t share my misery is consider these. And they do have a nice ring to them, don’t they?

By the way, I have finished the Jane Austen novel and I gotta say, that Emma sure was oblivious. To be honest, I think the film with Alicia Silverstone got it better. I mean, points for trying, Jane, but alas! I did love “Moby Dick” though! (And not just because of the title, either!) Yes, I have finally finished it, because I had to know what would happen! Anyway, theory: Captain Ahab + the whale = very much in love? A little bit in love? A slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance in love? BDSM?

Just joking, joking.

Anyway, since it’s going to be our last Christmas together, I do hope there’ll be lots of snow.

Best,

Scorpius

*

Dear Scorpius,

First of all, that’s a gross exaggeration. The turkey only explodes every OTHER year. Still, it’s wise to come equipped with an umbrella all the same.

And you don’t have to bring cake! Really, I’m sure Grandma will have enough of those to last us till March… Also, has it occurred to you that the fact that you want to treat your father with animal faeces and him barricading himself in his bedroom might be connected? Just a thought.

And there’s no dress code! You can come wearing whatever you want. Just maybe not, well, not nothing at all. I mean, not that, well. ~~There’s nothing wrong with~~ I mean ~~nothing against you not wearing clothes, I myself~~ you would definitely get cold! Warming spells, or not, so. Consider clothes, maybe?

And yes, Parkinson is very much invited. Prepare for all the Shakespeare soliloquies being sneaked into casual conversation over Yorkshire pudding. The plan is to sit them at separate ends of the table, but I don’t think it will work. The table is very large, mind you, but I’m sure they’ll either yell across it or send homing pigeons. And you know that they’re not actually going to give you their firstborn, right? You might apply for the position of a babysitter but I don’t think Parkinson would ever pay you. Also, what do you mean, you’ll be lonely and miserable forever? You can’t mean that. You won’t be. Don’t say that. Are you lonely and miserable now???

And I have to disagree with you about Rasputin and Henrietta. They are not acceptable baby names at all, and I’m saying that bearing in mind that you yourself were named Scorpius Hyperion.

Also, I daresay Emma wasn’t the only oblivious one. Like, at all. Just saying. No subtext. Just an innocent comment that has nothing to do with anything, nothing whatsoever.

I’m glad you liked “Moby Dick,” ~~but please don’t ever write ‘BDSM’ in a letter to me ever again because my sanity~~ it sure is a great book!

What do you mean, it’s going to be our last Christmas together? First of all, we don’t spend most Christmases together, and second of all, it sounded very… ominous. Are you moving out of the country? Or do you just not want to be friends after Hogwarts anymore? ~~Because I would, well, HATE that, but I’ll respect your decision if that’s what you want. Obviously. Only, did I do something wrong? I’m sorry if I did.~~

Take care and see you soon,

Al

*

Dear Rose,

I can’t do this anymore, Rose! I’m going crazy! I’m weak, I’m seventeen, and he keeps talking about showing up naked to the Christmas dinner and not being friends after Hogwarts and I just CAN’T. What do I do? I don’t know how I’m supposed to stand this till June and what’s worse, I don’t know how to stand anything after. It’s been unbearable and I want it to end but guess what? I also don’t EVER want it to end!

I think I’m going to die soon, and so, remember! I want to be cremated.

With Endless Frustration,

Al

*

Dear Al,

I think I’ll wear a raincoat rather than take an umbrella. That way, the outfit’s accounted for, too. Two birds with one stone and all that, and maybe one of them is even a turkey!

(By the way, imagine a stuffed turkey meeting a stuffy turkey. Someone should write a joke about that, or perhaps an eleven-tomes-long epic full of misery, heartbreak, and the occasional glimmer of hope, à la Icelandic Sagas but sans trolls. Though really, if I had to keep one thing from the Sagas, I would definitely go for the trolls.)

Also, I like your little theory about my father’s antics and the feces ointment being connected but I don’t think that’s very realistic, do you? I get that we’re literally wizards and ‘unrealistic’ is sort of our forte, but come on! That’s a little much, even for you, Al.

As for your cousin and dear Parkinson, I sincerely hope they don’t use homing pigeons. I mean, wouldn’t the pigeons get upset over the stuffed turkey? Just imagine that you’re being made to fly from one end of a table to another with somebody’s Shakespearian equivalent of sexts, and all the while there’s a crisp corpse laid out in the middle of it. Though when put like that, why the hell do we even ever eat anything that used to have a face? We should stick to flowers, mushrooms, and jellyfish.

Well, maybe not mushroom since Agnes is eating the entirety of the world’s supply of those, but flowers? Definitely. You are what you eat, after all, and I’d much rather be a tulip than a chicken. Nothing against chickens, but tulips smell infinitely better, and they’re prettier too. Also, there’s less of a chance of ending up in an abusive household if you’re a tulip since most likely some guy is going to buy you at a florist’s and give you to his girlfriend, who’ll take good care of you, watering your tulip-feet while you slowly die anyway. With chickens, they just chop your head off and serve you to people on ugly IKEA plates. Ruthless, that.

What was that about my name, by the way? Do you not like it? I suppose I could change it to something more normal, like Ludovig, or Fitzwilliam, or Keith.

And I actually agree with you! Emma sure wasn’t the only oblivious one! Not at all! :))))))))))))

I am not moving out of the country, no! What land outside the British soil could handle me anyway, right? Not that Britain is handling me all that well… They certainly don’t appreciate my genius here! (Medieval plebeians. It’s all that tea and biscuits and pretending you didn’t colonize half the world. Anyway, I’m about to try something, and I’m not sure if you’ll still want to be friends with me afterwards! It’s hard to determine if it really is our last Christmas together now, without all the data, but once I acquire it, I’ll make sure to share the results with you! Instantly! Because it won’t be avoidable! Haha.

Also, I’m not lonely and miserable, just exaggerating. You know, exaggerating? That thing I’ve been doing since before I learned how to talk? It’s just I’m so happy for Rose and Ariel, I am, but sometimes I look at them and just, well, it would be nice to have that, you know? Not the Shakespeare soliloquies, maybe, but the hand-holding, and the making up after fights, and the detention dates for protesting patriarchy through letting the Whomping Willow bounce eggs in the direction of that education reform bastard’s car.

Anyway.

Remember how we talked about how no one knows why wizards celebrate Christmas? I think I figured it out. I mean, Jesus’s whole story was kind of like your dad’s, right? At least the resurrection part, anyway! So I think that wizards just Dig this type of stories and so when Christianity came around they thought ‘oooh, shiny’ and it just stuck. I don’t mind, because Christmas trees, but I do agree with Rose that it’s nonsensical.

Still, Christmas trees.

Best,

Scorpius

*

Ariel,

I love you and I know that we weren’t going to meddle but they’ve been pining for years and the only reason why they’re not married yet is because they both have approximately three braincells between them, two of those dedicated to thinking about everything under the sun except for normal, well-adjusted behaviour like asking someone out on a date. Not that they don’t go on those anyway, because that time Scorpius fell asleep on top of Albus when they were doing homework and Al never finished writing his essay and almost had to have his arm amputated because of cut-off blood circulation since he ‘didn’t want to disturb Scor’ sure constituted a date! BUT STILL. This is unbearable and if they don’t resolve it soon then, Merlin give me strength, I will lock them up in some wardrobe at The Burrow until they either kiss or die of asphyxiation or BOTH.

With love,

Rose

*

Dear Mr. Potter,

Alright. I am doing this. It’s okay. You will not kill me for this.

PLEASE, do NOT kill me for this.

I am writing to you, because, as you know (or as you will know once you glance at the signature at the bottom of this letter), I am best friends with your son. Your son Al. Not your son James because ~~screw him~~ it just wouldn’t work out between us, friendship-wise. Nothing against him, it’s just that I think he’s a bit of a dick. It’s not personal at all! I mean, I suppose it is, but still. I don’t blame your sperm or you wife’s eggs for how James turned out. No hard feelings.

(No deep friendship either, though!)

Haha. Right.

Anyway, as you know, me and Al are best friends and, as you probably don’t know, I am actually very much in love with him.

Look, I’ll be honest with you: I am not a catch. I am weird and slow and stupid and ‘too eccentric for my own good’ if two thirds of the Hogwarts teachers are to be believed, but I love your son very much and I would put every effort into making him the happiest he can be and then happier still, if it was welcome. Now, I don’t actually think it IS welcome, but I have to try at least, hence this letter. Mr. Potter, I am not asking you for your family’s goats, I am not asking for Al’s hand in marriage, but I am asking for your permission to at least try and convince him that I would rather date him than have baby lemurs and eat ice cream every day for the rest of my life, and that maybe dating me wouldn’t actually be that bad.

I have a plan, see.

No, I am not telling you what it entails! It’s a secret, password-protected operation the details of which cannot be disclosed to civilians!

(I’m going to improvise the shit out of this, is what I mean.)

It’s actually sort of poetic, don’t you think? A hypothetical Potter-Malfoy union, I mean. Very two households, both alike in dignity, blah blah blah.

Not to be too dramatic, but for Al, I would readily give up snow. With that in mind, would you at least consider giving me permission to woo your son?

Kindest Regards,

Scorpius

*

Dear Scorpius,

You have my permission, then. Woo away.

H.P.

*

Dear Rose,

I am tired of pining. Enough is enough. As trees go, I would much rather be a sequoia anyway, or maybe the maidenhair tree. Anyway. I am going to seduce your cousin. Your cousin Al because Lily is like a sister to me and James is yuck. In case that wasn’t clear.

I need your help and also, think of codenames.

Best,

Keith Hyperion Malfoy

*

Dear SCORPIUS,

(Because your name certainly is not Keith unless you’re Scorpius’s secret, long-lost twin, in which case, why didn’t you eat that nutcase in the womb like baby sharks do while you still had the chance?)

Normally, I would never trust your plans, but I’ll make an exception just the once in the name of Christmas spirit, and also because HIGH TIME. Will you need blueprints of the house layout? Actually, forget it, meet me at Three Broomsticks tomorrow afternoon, I’ll have them with me. Wear a ski mask.

Your codename is Hazardous Hedgehog. Mine is Crown Prince of Denmark.

See you soon, comrade (but in a non-communist way!)

Crown Prince of Denmark Herself

*

Dear Rosie,

You are enjoying this far too much. I dread the day we get married.

With never-ending fondness,

Ariel

*

Dear Ariel,

Is that you proposing?

With hypothetical not-rejection,

Rose

*

Dear idiot,

Hi there Scorpius, friend! How do you feel about helping me buy a ring? Or potentially steal one, since, I’m, you know, broke.

Meet me tomorrow afternoon, wear a ski mask.

Eventually to-be-married,

Ariel

*

Potter,

My son just told me that during the Christmas dinner at The Burrow I will be tied with a rope and shoved in the cellar sometime after dessert. He said you APPROVE.

WHAT.

HAVE.

YOU.

DONE.

Best,

Draco

*

Dear Scorpius,

Out of interest, how is this ‘wooing’ going to look exactly?

H.P.

*

Dear Mr. Potter,

You know how Albus really liked “And Then There Were None”? We’re going to re-enact it! Don’t worry, you’ll be one of the last ones to go!

I know, I know, a murder mystery doesn’t sound particularly romantic, but trust me on this.

Or DON’T. It’s Christie, after all. You can’t trust anyone.

Just joking.

OR AM I?

Haha.

Kindest Regards,

Scorpius

*

Dear Malfoy,

Right. About that. Meet me at Three Broomsticks in the afternoon?

Best,

Harry

*

Dear Ariel,

So how come when I met up with Scorpius to discuss seducing my cousin (er, his seducing of my cousin, since I’m not big on either incest or infidelity), he kept mumbling about being in a hurry and meeting up to steal a fancy ring of some sort?

Anyway, you haven’t exactly ruined our planning with your Slytherin ploys because we bumped into Uncle Harry and Scorpius’s father anyway. All three of us, we managed to convince Scorpius that re-enacting Christie was not the best idea of asking someone out and we suggested he bake Al’s favourite cake. I’m pretty sure he’s still planning something hazardous, though.

(Which is a pun relating to his codename but, sadly, I cannot disclose this sort of information to you. We are not married yet, after all, and you could compromise my career in espionage if this went to court.)

With love,

Rose

*

Dearest Rosie,

You’ve got it all wrong! We were in a hurry to get to this Lord of the Rings convention is all, me and Scor.

With even more love,

Ariel

*

Dear Scorpius,

Your letter made me rethink some things. I now aspire to be a vegan. A vegan librarian, ha. Actually, I think I’d be alright, being that. And I think that maybe I’ll be fine after school in general, especially if we’re still friends then, which we will be, because there’s NOTHING you could do to change that.

NOTHING, alright?

See you soon (I can’t wait),

Al

*

Dear Crown Prince of Denmark,

Consider the operation called off. Apparently, there is NOTHING (NOTHING!) I could do to change the fact that me and Al are just friends.

NOTHING.

With despair,

Hazardous Sadhog

*

Dear Ariel,

I have a bruise from banging my head on the wall. You’ll have to kiss it better.

With ALL the love,

Rose

*

Dear Al,

Of course you’ll be fine! The world is a scary cemetery of hope but we will change it one cow at a time! Well, maybe 1/100th of a cow at a time, but my point stands. Sea turtles don’t survive often, but I think the two of us will make it.

Well, YOU definitely will at least! You, my friend. So much friendship. An ocean of friendship. A whole universe of friendship. A friendship like that of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, even!

~~See what I did there? No, you probably don’t, you probably think I don’t know, but I KNOW, Al, I know all about the lesbians!~~

When you start working at that library of yours, I hope you’ll want me to visit.

~~Counting down the hours till tomorrow, ever yours,~~

Scorpius

*

Dear Agnes,

MERLIN’S SHIT, you will NOT believe what happened today after Christmas dinner!

I will tell you anyway. It will be a very accurate account too, since James put his memory of the whole thing in a Pensieve for me because “he would throw up otherwise.” (Actually, it was because he kept tearing up, and wanted one hour’s rest from reliving the evening to cling to the remnants of his Manly Pride and Macho Disconnect. Because he’s actually a softie. Of course).

First of all, Scorpius and his father showed up wearing matching raincoats. They were red and covered in ducks, Scorpius’s spelled so that every now and then the ducks would squawk and move around. Of course, they were both impeccable apart from that, all perfectly styled hair and polished shoes, and then, well, the ducks. I swear, some of them were passive-aggressively staring at me the whole dinner. Ariel tried helping by tossing balled-up tissues with Petrarch lines scribbled on them my way, but Merlin, Agnes, THE DUCKS.

Anyway, I’m digressing. We all ate and it was… fine, mostly. The turkey didn’t explode! One of the cakes did, but that was for the better, since it was the one Scorpius brought, made especially for Al, only surprise surprise, somehow, the idiot put toothpaste on it rather than icing. Don’t ask. I simply don’t know.

Anyway, after dinner we all moved to the living room and there wasn’t enough space for all of us on the seats, of course, so most of us ‘youngsters,’ as Grandpa Arthur put it, had to settle on the carpet, but, somehow, Al, Scorpius, and James got a whole couch to themselves, the bastards.

Now, here’s where it gets really ridiculous:

I don’t know if you’ve been told about Plan F but, essentially, even though we’d tried convincing him it was a bad idea, Scorpius had ordered a freaking orchestra. Well, not exactly, because he could never afford one, but he bribed some poor carollers to come to The Burrow and sing a three-voice version of an “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and “I Will Always Love You” mash-up. So there we were, all dreading the moment, three minutes to the Hour of Doom, Scorpius wringing his fingers with his feet in Al’s lap, when suddenly Al Sniffled.

I am only capitalizing it because it deserves to be capitalized, Agnes. Believe me, it wasn’t a mere sniffle. It was decidedly a Sniffle. Anyway. He Sniffled so loud that everyone (and just in case you don’t realize what “everyone” entails exactly, I mean my mum, my no-longer-aunt-not-yet-mum-2-Luna, my dad, Hugo, Uncle Harry, Aunt Ginny, Lily, James, Scorpius, his father, Grandma Molly, Grandpa Arthur, Uncle Charlie, Ariel, and me) turned to look at him and so we all saw that he was crying. Yes, you read that right. Crying.

Three minutes before the Hour of Doom.

So Scorpius, who normally would freak out and offer Al tea and pile ten blankets on top of him and fret and wave his hands around and talk about a voyage through the desert to acquire a magical remedy flower of some sort, actually said:

“Um, could you maybe postpone the mental breakdown by five minutes?”

And my idiot of cousin said:

“No. No, act-tually, I d-don’t think I can.”

(“said” being a euphemism for “hiccupped” anyway.)

And then he very gently put Scorpius’s feet aside and got up, shaking like lightning had just struck him, and, to be honest, Agnes, he looked it too. Anyway, he cleared his throat, kept crying, and started talking.

Here’s what he said:

“I’m sorry, Scorpius, I really am, but I just can’t do this anymore! I am also sorry to everyone in the room for having to witness this, but you don’t ACTUALLY have to, so you know, feel free to go. Anyway, I AM saying this, or so help me Merlin. Look. Scor. I value your friendship so much, but I am a weak little weed, and you’re wearing a raincoat with ducks all over it for fu— fudge’s sake, and the ducks keep moving around and trying to, I don’t know, CUDDLE me, and that’s all well and good, but I don’t want to be hugged by 2D ducks! I mean, it’s better than never being hugged by anyone at all, but on my list of people and animals I’d like hugs from, ducks aren’t even in the top ten! And I’m crying because— well, it sure isn’t because of the DUCKS! Look. I reread them sometimes. Our Christmas letters. Except it always ruins me because that first year, before Hogwarts, you wrote something by accident and I wish it hadn’t been. An accident. You wrote ‘with loving’ remember? You meant ‘with loathing’ but you wrote ‘with loving’ and every time I read it I wish you’d write it just one more time, and actually mean it, but you never do, because you don’t! I mean, don’t love me. Which is FINE, you don’t HAVE to love me, who would ANYWAY? But see, the world is a very, very shitty place, Death Eaters miserable in prison, and other people miserable because of what they did when they weren’t in prison, and neo-Death Eaters NOT in prison, and global warming, and how much of a miracle it is when a sea turtle survives, and all the wars ever, and the stupid Hogwarts houses, and how we kill mosquitos without second thought, even, and I’ve read SO many books which say that it’s all worth it anyway, and, by now, I actually sort of believe it. I believe it, but I don’t know it from books. I know it from YOU. So I’m sorry if you hate me for this but I simply CANNOT go even ONE minute longer without telling you that I LOVE YOU TO PIECES. Er. Thank you. That’s all.”

I had never ever heard my cousin speak for so long and with so much emotion. It was very disturbing. He looked like something between a five-year-old girl and a chicken in the middle of being strangled.

And Scorpius? Well, Scorpius said:

“Excuse me for a minute!”

It was more of a squeak actually.

Then he turned around, reached to open the window and yelled:

“Thank you for your help, carollers, but we’re good! Apparently, he’s already wooed, and I think any more PDA will kill him, so!”

And off the carollers went, 14 seconds before the Hour of Doom. It was 2012 all over again, apocalypse never making it on time. 

Anyway, Scorpius turned back around, carefully took Al’s face between his hands like Al was something precious and easily breakable (which, to be fair, he IS those things), and said:

“My ducks only love you because I love you.”

Al blinked at him.

“Obviously,” Scorpius added unhelpfully.

“It is not obvious,” said Albus, looking very much like his face couldn’t decide between going a ghostly white and blushing tomato red. “Like, at all.”

“It REALLY is!” Uncle Harry and Mr. Malfoy yelled in unison just then, and well, that was that.

(Yes, they did kiss, from what I hear, but that I didn’t get to witness, because, well, Scorpius was right about too much PDA.)

Some happy ending, huh? Though personally, I’d rather think of it as a happy beginning.

Merry Christmas,

~~Crown Prince of Denmark~~

Rose

*

Dear WoeWizard,

Date ideas for someone who’s better than all the worlds put together?

Faithfully,

Albert Otter

*

Dear Al,

You’re so much better than snow.

With loving, always yours,

Scorpius

P.S. Thanks for the turnip!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! <3 Please let me know what you think? :))
> 
> I'm on tumblr @yoyointhegarden (yes, I really do love Kate Bush's Cloudbusting that much) though it's more poetry, memes, and pretty pictures than fandoms, tbh! And if you're bored, please check out my original story about kids almost as oblivious as these two and art theft, of all things: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23463895/chapters/56249917


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